What a channel manager does
A channel manager is the link between your hotel and the online travel agencies. It sends three things to the OTAs: how many rooms of each type are free, at what rate, and under which restrictions such as minimum stay or closed to arrival. In the other direction, it brings new, modified and cancelled bookings into the hotel.
Without a channel manager, someone in the hotel updates every extranet by hand. That works with two rooms and one OTA. Once you have several OTAs and your own booking engine, it gets risky, because there is always a gap between a booking and the update.
What happens when a guest books
- 01The booking comes in
A guest books a double room for three nights on Booking.com.
- 02The PMS takes over
The booking appears in the tape chart with the guest, rate and payment method.
- 03Inventory goes down
For those nights, there is one double room fewer available.
- 04The channels are updated
The channel manager pushes the new availability to every connected OTA and to your own website.
Avoiding overbookings
Overbookings almost always happen at the same point: two channels sell the last room before the other one knows about it. A channel manager shrinks that gap to a few moments. It cannot disappear entirely, because OTAs process updates at their own pace.
That is why it matters what happens in the hotel when things get tight: the PMS should re-check availability before every confirmation and flag discrepancies instead of quietly accepting them.
How to lower the risk of overbooking
- Every room type is mapped to exactly one OTA room type.
- Rooms out of order for refurbishment or repairs are blocked in the PMS, not in the extranet.
- Walk-ins and phone bookings are entered in the PMS straight away.
- Rates and availability are only ever changed in the PMS, never directly on the OTA.
- Channel manager error messages are reviewed every day.
Why the channel manager belongs in the PMS
Many hotels run a channel manager as a separate program alongside the PMS. That means two room inventories, kept in sync via an interface. Every glitch in that interface creates discrepancies, and rates are often maintained in two places.
If the channel manager is part of the PMS, there is only one inventory and one rate list. What the front desk sees is exactly what the OTAs are selling.
| Criterion | Separate program | Built into the PMS |
|---|---|---|
| Room inventory | Two inventories, synced via an interface | One inventory |
| Rate updates | Often in both systems | Once, in the PMS |
| Cost | Additional monthly fee | Included in the price, depending on the vendor |
| Troubleshooting | Between two vendors | In one place |
Set-up in five steps
Set-up is less about technology than about care. Set aside a quiet morning and have your extranet logins ready.
From extranet to connected channel
- 01Set up room types and rates cleanly in the PMS
Only what is unambiguous in the PMS can be mapped unambiguously.
- 02Approve the connection on the OTA
In the Booking.com or Expedia extranet, you confirm the channel manager as your connectivity partner.
- 03Map room types and rates
Each OTA room type is mapped to exactly one PMS room type, and each OTA rate to one PMS rate.
- 04Push availability and rates
Check first, then send the complete picture to the OTA.
- 05Run a test booking
Create, modify and cancel a booking and check that everything arrives in the PMS.
The channel manager in STRYK: connection status
Connect Booking.com, Expedia, Airbnb and other channels to STRYK. Manage rates and availability centrally and handle OTA reservations in the calendar. For connected channels: availability, rates, minimum stays and closed-to-arrival or closed-to-departure restrictions come straight from STRYK. New, modified and cancelled OTA bookings land in the tape chart and change the same inventory as a booking made at the front desk or through your own website.
We tell you which channels your property can connect through STRYK before you decide. Your contracts, log-ins and commissions with the OTAs remain your own.
