The process of a booking indicates a lot about the experience they are more likely to have at the hotel to the potential guests. The moment a traveler decides to book your hotel, it is their first interaction with you, and if it is smooth and swift, there is a higher probability that they will book with you again. Therefore, it is important that you have an efficient booking system to enhance your sales overall performance.
Double bookings and overbooking are absolute bad news for your property and they have the capacity to negatively impact your enterprise in the long term.
Read further to know how to avoid, manage, and fix double bookings and overbookings in detail.
Introduction to Double Booking and Overbooking
Double Booking occurs when the same room is booked for 2 separate customers on the same date. Overbooking is initially the same as double booking, it occurs when the number of bookings for a certain period is more than the number of rooms available. If those bookings arrived at the given date, there will not be enough rooms for them.
If you label them as double bookings or overbooking, you are probably clear about the definitions, and if you are a new hotelier, you would be clear by now.
Drawbacks:
• Below par customer experiences
• Negative testimonials on significant websites
• Lost opportunity for sales
• Risk of losing the client
• Likelihood of diminishing guest loyalty if a guest is repeatedly double booked
• Waste of time and resources to resolve the state of affairs
• Downfall of partnerships with Online Travel Agencies or reserving sites if troubles occur often
There can be a pretty domino impact if a double-booked guest turns disgruntled. Consider the possibility of the disappointed guests creating chaos on the front desk system making others uncomfortable. Or worse if they leave poor reviews online and tell their circle about the experience they had. A well-maintained reservation system can save you from all this trouble.
Regulations And Settlement
Usually, the hotel themselves decide on the policies regarding the reservations. But here are some conventional guidelines followed by the hoteliers in the industry. The safest way to avoid a scene and disappointments, establish and communicate a clear set of rules about the bookings and their cancellations. This way you will be in the clear and be able to calm the guest sooner.
Whenever the situation of double bookings arises, as the hotelier you are obliged to solve the situation for your visitor, even though there may be no law dictating it. This is an action to show that you deeply care about your customers, this will increase the possibility of them returning to you next time.
In such situations think;
If you have other or similar rooms available?
If Yes, you can book your guests these rooms as compensation in the same amount they have previously paid.
If Not, you should find them an equally good room in another accommodation and arrange their transport till there, the visitor should not have to pay for it since they have not made any mistake and you need to maintain a good name.
In the case you allow the guest to walk away without compensating them for your mistakes, you will be liable to a lawsuit. And that is big trouble to call for against an inconvenience. You can settle down the misunderstanding by arranging a refund or rooms.
To ensure the enjoyment with the double-booked guest is as positive as viable, make sure you provide an apology, deal with them with empathy and expertise, and possibly offer them a reduced stay next time they’re in town.
The Overbooking Approach
Some hotels apply the Overbooking Strategy deliberately. They will occasionally overbook their rooms both due to the fact they were not credit cards processed at the time of reserving or for different revenue supervision reasons. This is done because usually there is a possibility that there will be some visitors who will not come or actually cancel, which could result in lesser revenue. Overbooking permits for a few drop-offs and you can nonetheless have totally booked rooms each night.
It is a considerable risk taken by the hotel because there is always a possibility that all the guests might show up. You'll make your very own choices on whether that is possible or no longer, but commonly you’ll want a few accurate forecasting and historical statistics to be secure in your assumptions. To get it proper, you probably need to apply a software solution like a revenue management system.
Such occasions also show that the respective hotel would not mind locating extra guests' opportunity for accommodation at their very own cost considering the prevailing completely booked rooms will make up for it. Many residences may even pre-arrange agreements with other hotels to put together for such outcomes.
However, it could impact the potential to attract new clients ultimately and lodges should consider what kind of visitor they're relocating. Were they a potential long-term client, a high spender, or definitely a one-time?
Possible Reasons for Accidental Overbooking and Double Booking
You might not like overbookings, but they might still occur no matter how much you try to avoid them. It may not be your fault every time.
• If you had fully booked your property, and due to unexpected or planned maintenances you might have to close certain rooms to the guests.
• It can additionally arise while you are compelled to replace and manipulate your inventory manually. In case you are advertising your rooms on a couple of websites simultaneously, you will not be able to update one website when a booking is made on some other. In the meantime, one person books the same room on another booking site. You could avoid this by splitting your stock, but then you definitely will miss the chance of accomplishing the occupancy rate you desire.
• Another possible motive for a double booking is not notifying your availability correctly for your reserving websites.
Solutions for Overbooking And Double Bookings
It is smarter and much more secure to try to keep away from the hassle of double bookings, and nevertheless obtain first-rate occupancy.
The use of an exceptional software program to assist to manage your bookings and decrease the danger of double bookings.
Some solutions:
• A Channel Manager will let you market all your rooms on all of your booking channels in real-time. When a booking is made on one channel, the channel manager will update your front desk system and further channels to make sure stock is up to date automatically in real-time. This means the availability your guests see will constantly be correct and up to date.
• A Hotel Booking System inclusive of an online booking engine will help you process credit card bills securely at the time of reservation. You will receive a commission directly in your official bank account at the time of reserving, however, the benefit of having access to that info will permit you to cut your cancellation and amendment charges in case your guest changes their booking or backs out. A booking engine also helps you to seize direct bookings to your website or Fb web page, subtracting the commission prices.
These systems provide protection from overbooking your inventory.
Even though such systems take most of the load off your back, you will still have to post the details when you receive walk-in or over-the-phone direct bookings.
