When you decide to sell accommodation through a Reservation System, you need to take care of several important things. In this article, you will learn tips to minimize the risks associated with selling online. Remember, however, that whenever money and your business are at stake, you should be careful.
Take care to publish the terms and conditions of your stay, real descriptions and photos of your listings.
If you want to avoid the risk of misunderstandings with your guests, you need to be fair to them first and foremost. Describe the rules of stay, so that even before booking, your guests, know the rules that apply to you.
Describe the rooms, the hotel, the area and everything about your offer in a true and truthful way. The same goes for photos to encourage them to come to you.
Keep information about all your bookings in one place.
If you want to avoid misunderstandings about overbooking, keep one calendar for your bookings. What is overbooking? It is a situation in which the same room is booked by two or more customers at the same time. Avoid this, for example, when you use the BedBooking app and integrate it with travel portals where you sell accommodations, such as Booking.com. Read more about integrating with Booking.com, Airbnb.com and other OTAs.
Be vigilant for reservations with payment upon arrival (on site).
Remember to verify bookings from guests who have chosen on-site payment. This method of payment involves some risk. Each booking results in a room on the selected date no longer being available in the Reservation System. This can be used to fraudulently block reservations from you. Such practices can be used by your competitors, for example. This is because there are cases when competing facilities specifically book a fake stay, marking Payment on the spot, so they can close the availability of the date at your facility, thus preventing your guests from making a real reservation.
How to protect yourself?
We recommend taking down payments or deposits for your stay. Even a small amount helps verify that the reservation is genuine and the Guest is actually planning to come. This way you can avoid losses associated with fraudulent or unconfirmed bookings. In BedBooking you can quickly set up a mandatory deposit or down payment.
Read the article: Advance payment vs Down payment: settings and differences