Channel Managers and mapping rooms and rates.

Created by Katrín Magnúsdóttir, Modified on Tue, 30 Jul at 12:54 PM by Martin Gjorgjievski

Channel Manager is a cloud-based solution used to take ROOMS (inventory and open/ closed dates, some restrictions), and RATES to the OTAs and other channels that have the enabled XML connection, in real time.

You also use it to get all reservations, modifications, cancellations from all channels, send them to your PMS and update the inventory - saving you time and preventing overbookings.

You can also do reservations in your PMS and send the updated number of available rooms to OTAs. You send your rates from PMS to the OTAs, at the same time, and minimise the potential of parity issues with various partners.

With one click you can update your rates in the PMS, they will be sent through channel manager to your sales channels. If a booking comes in directly, the reception creates it in the PMS, and the inventory updates on all channels. If a guest makes a reservation on an OTA, channel manager takes it through channel manager into the PMS together with all its details, and updates the inventory in the PMS, and again through channel manager to all other channels.

(click on image to enlarge)

It is important to have the configuration of all room and rate types equal on channel´s extranet and PMS, including currencies on rate plans.

Details about room and rate mapping

It is important that you have a compatible setup on OTAs and Booking Factory and that all connections are approved from your end (as described HERE), so the mapping can run smoothly. After we are done with the mapping, you will be notified and you will just need to check all of the rates and available rooms to make sure everything is correctly mapped and displayed on all channels.

Check that your rate plans in Booking Factory can be matched to rates in the OTA. Same goes for Room Types. You can simply make a list of rate and room types in the OTA, and tell us what rate and room type it matches in Booking Factory.

Note the currency; it needs to match between the rate we will be mapping from PMS to the currency you are using in the OTA.

If you have not created all of the rooms or rates on both sides, we suggest that you modify your setup before you connect the channel manager. Match the currencies between rates.

Please note that managing your availability and prices, after the channel manager is connected, will not be possible in the OTAs, rather only in the PMS The Booking Factory.

If you have special promotions or membership programs activated on some OTAs, those rates will be derived within that OTA from the rates sent through channel manager. In most cases the reservations on those special rates will be pulled into the PMS under the original rate plan´s name ("parent rate").

Feel free to contact us if you need to use other channel manager(s). We will enable the connection on our end and the mapping can start.