How to choose a channel manager?

Find out in this article what is important to consider when it comes to choosing a channel manager

First things first, what is a channel manager and what is it for?

A channel manager is an online tool which allows you to manage your hostel's reservations coming from several online room sellers, such as online travel agencies (OTAs) - like Hostelsclub, but also travel agents, wholesalers, tour operators and even your own website - in just one place! This is very useful because you can instantly and simultaneously distribute all of your rooms on the Internet (but consider that the monthly fee you pay for your channel varies according to the number of websites connected) and you don't need to access the backoffice of each one of them individually. If a reservation comes in from an OTA, the calendar of all of the others will be updated, which means that a channel manager helps prevent overbookings - which happen when a client books for a date that is already taken by another client. These updates on calendars also work for prices - which means, if you update a price through your channel manager, it will automatically update in all the websites your channel manager is connected to!

Ok, but how does it work exactly?

This is the easy part! If you just started using a channel manager and you want to integrate Hostelsclub as one of your booking providers, you simply have to inform us which channel manager you are using, then we will contact the channel manager and provide them with your property ID number. After the connection is established, all the changes done in your channel manager (such as prices and availability) will also show up for clients at hostelsclub.com instantly!

I'm interested. How do I choose a channel manager?

If you're ready to make the inventory distribution of your hostel smooth and stress-free, here's a list of criteria to consider:

1 - Speed

You want your channel manager to make updates on your sales channels as fast as possible - so you don't loose a client or sell the same room for the same dates twice.

2 - Number of rooms/ beds

Pay attention to the amount of rooms/ beds your potential channel manager allows you to insert and sell - if you work for a small hostel that might not be an issue but if you work for a big one... well, you probably want to have all your rooms up for selling simultaneously, right?

3 - Number of connections

Some channel managers allow you to connect to only a limited number of sales channels - which means you will have to choose among OTAs which ones to include on the channel manager, and which ones to discard. This can be a challenge, especially considering that small OTAs don't bring you many reservations but they are free of charge - therefore it would make sense to work with as many as possible!

4 - Price

Usually, if the three previous features please you, then the price won't be so nice.

But here's the good news, let us introduce you to our new channel manager. Besides being very fast, this channel manager allows you to introduce unlimited beds/ rooms and connect to unlimited sales channels for only 50 EUR per month. This means you can include ALL the rooms you're selling and also ALL the sales channels you work with - even the very specific ones or those which bring you reservations only for a specific time of the year!

Does it sound interesting? Get a 10 EUR discount just by filling in the form!