A robust Central Reservation System (CRS) is not just a convenience—it’s a strategic necessity. To ensure you are future-ready, it’s important to choose a CRS platform with continuous enhancements that can adjust to new technology and travel trends. Hoteliers and casino resorts need powerful tools to manage reservations efficiently and enhance the guest experience, which will result in extended direct booking conversions and profitable revenue.

Here are some of the key CRS features that can elevate your distribution strategy:

  • Reservation delivery dashboard – With detailed and robust reporting, hoteliers are empowered with comprehensive insights into their reservation status, such as:
    • Holistic reporting: Hoteliers can view the overall health of their reservations, including success rates, failures, pending requests, work in progress, and the reservation source.
    • Failure analysis: When a reservation fails, the dashboard provides detailed reasons. Hoteliers can quickly diagnose issues and take corrective actions.
    • Resend functionality: If a reservation encounters hiccups, hoteliers can resend the request to the Property Management System (PMS) for seamless completion.
  • Brand level controls – Managing rate plans and policies across multiple properties can be daunting. The brand-level controls feature simplifies this process by enabling hoteliers to create rate plans and policy templates. These templates can then be associated with properties across the brand. This automation streamlines processes, reduces manual effort, and saves valuable time for the hoteliers. Additionally, hoteliers can swiftly create multiple offer codes on a brand rate plan across multiple properties.
  • Alternate properties and smart policies – Hoteliers have the flexibility to create customized policies for guests, whether it’s related to cancelable or non-cancelable bookings. Additionally, they can set fees for specific refundable policies. With alternate properties, when a guest’s desired property isn’t available for their selected dates, hoteliers can choose to suggest their other properties to the guests. This approach keeps guests engaged and minimizes booking abandonment.
  • Multi-room with multi-rate – Hoteliers can empower guests to book multiple rooms with varying rate plans in a single reservation process. This helps guests successfully execute complex travel plans while helping hoteliers increase loyalty bookings as guests book their stay with special member rates and additional benefits. This seamless experience on the hotelier’s direct booking engine fosters loyalty and satisfaction.
  • Master confirmation code – While each room booking has its confirmation number, the master confirmation code provides an overarching identifier for reservations involving multiple rooms booked in a single booking, simplifying tracking and management.
  • Built-in icon library – Hoteliers can display icons specific to their property’s offerings on their booking engine as icons can quickly and simply convey services and amenities. Well-designed icons enhance the overall interface with visually appealing aesthetics while taking up a minimum amount of space. Additionally, the ability to change icon colors and keep the icon shape/style the same across the booking engine helps hoteliers maintain brand consistency and enhance guest engagement while encouraging more direct bookings.
  • Add to calendar – When guests complete their reservation through the booking engine, they can conveniently add their bookings to calendars such as Outlook, Apple, Google, and Yahoo, ensuring easy access to booking details.
  • Bot prevention – When an automated bot and malicious scripts read through the booking engine, it might create fake reservations and fake form submissions. In this case, hoteliers can ensure the integrity of the reservation process by implementing reCAPTCHA on their booking engine via CRS, which verifies that the users are human and further reduces the risk of fraudulent bookings and reservations. A well-implemented reCAPTCHA on the booking engine also contributes to better search engine visibility and potentially attracts more organic traffic.
  • Loyalty benefits – Hoteliers and casino resorts can supercharge their direct booking strategy while fostering guest loyalty. Loyalty sign-up empowers guests to book repeat visits in return for exclusive privileges and benefits. Robust features such as loyalty tiers, loyalty upsells, comp-cash integrations, and player-based comp restrictions help casino resorts tailor a gaming experience for their top players. Read more about how loyalty features can elevate your casino’s direct booking strategy.
  • ADA compliance – The ADA, Americans with Disabilities Act, is a federal law in the United States that prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities in all areas of public life. According to the MMGY Global report, travelers with disabilities spend $58.2 billion per year on travel. Achieving ADA compliance is more than just a requirement, it’s a vital component of a successful customer acquisition strategy. By ensuring that your hotel’s booking engine is accessible to all users, you can expand your customer base, foster loyalty, enhance the user experience, and build a positive brand image. Read more about how an ADA compliant booking engine can boost your customer acquisition strategy.

Cendyn’s innovative and industry-leading solution Cendyn CRS is a cloud-based reservation system that facilitates hoteliers with intelligent rate and inventory management tools. Named the #1 CRS by HotelTechAwards for seven years in a row, it empowers hoteliers to take control of their distribution strategy and optimize demand across all the global distribution channels. With dynamic pricing rules, superior merchandising, loyalty features, and conversion-impacting capabilities, Cendyn CRS executes a successful direct booking strategy for hoteliers to supercharge their profitable revenue and exceed financial goals. The Cendyn CRS also boosts hoteliers direct booking strategy with its intuitive Cendyn Booking Engine which is built to convert lookers into bookers with the help of its responsive nature and powerful features.

About Cendyn

Cendyn is a global hospitality cloud-based technology company that enables hotels to drive revenue, maximize profitability, and create deeper connections with guests through its integrated solutions.

Serving hoteliers for nearly 30 years, Cendyn drives commercial success for hotels through its Find, Book, Grow promise: find the right guests; drive them to book direct, and grow loyalty and revenue across the spectrum of digital guest interactions.

Cendyn has over 32,000 customers worldwide in more than 150 countries - including brands such as Outrigger Hospitality, Hyatt, IHG, Aman Resorts & Hotels, Relais & Châteaux, Highgate, TFE Hotels, Banyan Tree Hotels & Resorts, Coraltree Hospitality, and Onyx Hospitality Group - generating more than $20 billion in annual hotel revenue. The company supports its growing customer base from locations across the globe, including the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Singapore, Bangkok, and India.

To find out more, visit cendyn.com.

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