Boosting Bookings with Top-Notch Booking Engines

In hospitality, your booking engine is the first impression guests get—make sure it’s efficient, speedy, and simple to navigate! Whether you’re a hotel veteran or just starting out, the right booking engine can make all the difference in how your guests experience your website and complete their reservations. Based on a study by Baymard Institute, the average cart abandonment rate across industries is 70.19% in 2024. In hospitality, we have seen an even higher abandonment rate than that! 

How the Guest Experience Impacts Bookings

The easier and faster the booking process, the more likely your guests are to click "confirm." This has proven to be true with Vertical Booking’s CRS and booking engine which are designed to handle high-volume bookings with ease, keeping the process intuitive for guests. Whether they’re booking a last-minute stay or planning ahead, Vertical Booking by Zucchetti ensures a seamless experience from start to finish.

According to Yaminah Mayta, the Co-Founder at olive, “When travelers encounter a smooth, frictionless booking process–one that is fast, personalized, and visually engaging–they are far more likely to complete their reservation.” She went on to explain that a seamless and intuitive (digital) guest experience is one of the most powerful drivers of direct bookings.  And how a cluttered or confusing interface, on the other hand, can lead to frustration and abandonment. A few tools have entered the hotel booking process such as AI-driven personalization, targeted offers, and real-time behavioral insights, which is how olive ensures that your guests see the most relevant options at the right moment. This not only enhances the user experience but also maximizes conversion rates, turning more website visitors into guests.

Branding on Your Booking Engine

Your booking engine should reflect your brand’s essence. Alison Cowan with Vertical Booking explained that their platform “lets you fully customize the design, from colors to messaging, so it aligns perfectly with your website’s brand. Whether you run a boutique hotel or a luxury resort, Vertical Booking ensures a consistent, professional look, which your guest has come to expect”

Yaminah reiterates this by saying “a hotel’s booking engine should feel like a natural extension of its brand, not a generic third-party tool. Consistency in design, tone, and user experience builds trust and reinforces the hotel’s identity at a critical decision-making moment. olive equips hotels with a fully customized booking engine that seamlessly aligns with their brand aesthetics, from colors and typography to messaging and imagery. This enhances the visual appeal while also creating a cohesive and intuitive experience that resonates with guests. By ensuring the entire booking process reflects the hotel’s unique personality, olive helps drive engagement, loyalty, and ultimately, more direct bookings.”

Data Points Your Booking Engine Should Provide

We all know that today’s travelers need an experience tailored “just for them”. Yaminah described how “they demand more than just a generic booking experience: they want relevance, convenience, and personalization. olive harnesses the power of AI and machine learning to analyze real-time guest behavior, past booking patterns, and intent signals to dynamically tailor the booking journey. By leveraging data-driven insights, olive surfaces the most relevant room types, personalized offers, and dynamic bundles to each guest, increasing the likelihood of conversion.” 

The other experience we need to consider is that of the hotelier trying to understand the value their booking engine provides. Yaminah explains how “olive has built tools to provide deep analytics for hoteliers with a granular understanding of the guest journey, enabling smarter marketing decisions and continuous experience refinement. With AI-powered automation and predictive modeling, olive identifies your highest-intent visitors and turns them into guests.”

Vertical Booking offers in-depth analytics that allow you to track booking trends, guest demographics, and more. With this data, you can fine-tune your pricing and availability to boost profitability. This type of data will not only provide for a better guest experience, but also help us navigate the landscape of their demands.

A top-notch booking engine is essential for attracting guests, streamlining your operations, and growing your business. Whether you choose Vertical Booking’s powerful, customizable platform or olive’s sleek, mobile-friendly design, both bring innovative solutions that will help enhance the guest experience and make your booking process a breeze.

About Affixify

Affixify is a technology due diligence platform designed specifically for hoteliers. Our platform helps hotel professionals quickly and efficiently compare a wide range of technology vendors to find the best solutions for their unique needs. With an unbiased approach and a comprehensive database of hotel technology platforms, Affixify ensures that hoteliers can make informed decisions and select the right technology to drive their business forward. We understand that no single solution fits all, and we’re here to help you find the perfect tech fit for your hotel. To learn more, get in touch with us at www.getaffixify.com.