All cards are on the table. What's your pick?
All cards are on the table. What's your pick?
If you rely on more than one website to attract guests, you know the struggle. Managing rates and availability across Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) like Booking.com and Expedia, while trying to keep your direct booking engine up to date, can feel like a full-time job. This is exactly where a hotel channel manager steps in.
This tool helps properties centralise their online distribution. It ensures that room availability, prices, and restrictions stay consistent across every platform. Without one, you’re playing a risky game of trying to avoid double bookings and pricing errors.
But as hospitality tech moves forward, many hoteliers are asking valid questions. Is channel manager software still essential? How does an online channel manager fit into a modern setup? And can guest communication tools like HiJiffy support – or even replace – a traditional bookings channel manager?
Let’s dig into what a channel manager actually is, why you likely need one, and how pairing it with HiJiffy’s conversational AI helps turn simple distribution into actual revenue.
A hotel channel manager is a piece of software that lets you control room availability, rates, and restrictions across multiple booking sites from one dashboard. Rather than logging into five different platforms to change a price, the channel manager synchronises the data automatically.
Think of it as the central nervous system connecting your Property Management System (PMS), your direct booking engine, and the OTAs.
Typical channel manager software connects to:
When a guest books a room on Expedia, the online channel manager instantly updates your inventory across Booking.com, your website, and your PMS. This automation stops overbookings in their tracks and saves your team from hours of manual data entry.
A bookings channel manager ensures:
At its core, a hotel channel manager simplifies workload for your reservations team. It acts as the single source of truth for your inventory.
From one screen, you can update pricing and stay restrictions across all connected channels. There is no need to remember multiple passwords or navigate different backend systems.
This is the heavy lifting. A bookings channel manager updates inventory in real time. If selling your last suite on one site doesn’t close it out on the others within seconds, you may have a problem just as quickly. This software prevents that conflict.
An online channel manager connects you to huge global markets via OTAs, while keeping you in control of the inventory. It’s about maximum exposure with minimum administrative effort.
By automating these updates, channel managers for bookings slash the time staff spend on admin. This frees them up to focus on what matters: the guest experience.
Implementing robust channel manager software brings operational and commercial wins for hotels of any size.
You can sell rooms on more platforms simultaneously. You aren’t limited by how many extranets your staff can physically manage in a day.
Real-time syncing means you are unlikely to have that awkward conversation with a guest explaining why their booked room doesn’t exist, protecting your hotel’s reputation and guest satisfaction.
Channel managers for bookings allow you to react fast. If demand spikes for a local event, you can yield rates across all channels instantly.
Want to try a new niche OTA? With a bookings channel manager, adding a new channel is usually just a few clicks, not a total operational overhaul.
Whether you need one depends on your strategy and size. However, for most modern properties, the answer is a resounding “yes.”
It is vital if you:
If you run a three-room B&B and only take bookings via phone or one website, an online channel manager might be overkill. You can probably manage a paper diary or a spreadsheet.
But be warned: as soon as you want to grow, manual management becomes a bottleneck. It introduces human error, and human error costs money.
While a hotel channel manager is brilliant at distribution, it has a blind spot: it doesn’t actually sell the room to the human being looking at it.
Channel managers for bookings ensure rooms are available, but they don’t convince a guest to book. They are logistical tools, not sales agents.
A bookings channel manager cannot answer queries about late check-out, confirm whether your pool is heated, or respond to dozens of other most frequently asked questions by hotel guests. If a guest is on your booking engine and has a doubt, the channel manager can’t help them. That guest often leaves to book elsewhere.
Traditional software waits for a booking to land. It doesn’t reach out to hesitant lookers or engage them in conversation.
Channel managers don’t handle messages from WhatsApp, Instagram, or Facebook Messenger. These are the places where modern travellers ask questions before making decisions.
This is where the tech stack needs to evolve. Distribution is essential, but engagement is what drives the booking.
While your hotel channel manager handles the backend logistics, HiJiffy handles the guest. By adding a specialised conversational AI layer to your website and social channels, HiJiffy works alongside your distribution tech to capture more direct business.
HiJiffy doesn’t do the job of a bookings channel manager – it makes that job more profitable by ensuring the inventory you distribute actually gets sold.
In a word: No. And it doesn’t try to.
The smart play is a hybrid hotel tech stack: use a hotel channel manager for distribution and HiJiffy for engagement.
Traditionally, hotels relied on online channel managers to push inventory out. Today, guests expect instant communication. Bridging this gap is crucial.
| Feature | Hotel Channel Manager | HiJiffy Conversational AI |
|---|---|---|
| Real-time inventory sync | ✅ Yes | ❌ No (Uses PMS/Channel Manager data) |
| Guest communication | ❌ No | ✅ Yes (24/7 Automation) |
| Conversion optimisation | ❌ No | ✅ Yes (Nudges guests to book) |
| Upselling & Cross-selling | ❌ No | ✅ Yes |
By combining a bookings channel manager with HiJiffy, you cover both bases: operational safety and revenue growth.
Selecting a hotel channel manager is a big decision. Don’t just look at the price tag; look at the ecosystem.
A hotel channel manager remains a non-negotiable part of a modern hotel’s toolkit. It keeps your inventory organised, your rates consistent, and your operations running smoothly.
However, distribution alone doesn’t guarantee revenue. By pairing your bookings channel manager with HiJiffy, you transform a backend process into a guest-facing sales engine. You ensure that when a guest finds your room, they have the confidence and the support to book it directly.
Next step: Ensure your distribution is solid with a channel manager, then layer on HiJiffy to handle the questions, the conversions, and the guest experience. Want to learn more about HiJiffy? Explore the interactive product tour or book a demo with one of our specialists.
There is no single “best” one. It depends on your size and budget. Look for channel manager software that offers reliable two-way integration with your PMS and connects to the specific OTAs your guests use.
Costs vary, often based on room count. However, the cost is usually covered quickly by the revenue saved from preventing overbookings and the time saved on admin.
Absolutely. In fact, small teams benefit most because they lack the staff to manage extranets manually. An online channel manager acts like an extra staff member.
Yes. HiJiffy handles the conversation and conversion; the hotel channel manager handles the inventory logic and rate distribution. They are partners, not competitors.
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Funding:
This project received funding from the European Union Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under Grant Contract No. 782509.
