What is the difference between a website and a direct booking engine page?
A website is your property’s marketing and advertising tool for capturing the interest of potential guests. A direct booking engine is the website that facilitates and processes online guest reservations.
💡 Note:
Guests will typically access your booking engine through your website.
You can find information about our direct booking engine on siteminder.com.
Why is it important to link your direct booking engine to your property’s website?
Imagine potential guests are looking for accommodation in your area and they find your website. They love your property, what it has to offer, and they are ready to book, however they cannot find how to book through your property's website. They may decide to:
Call your property — the phone line could be potentially busy.
E-mail your property — you may not check your e-mail inbox immediately.
Search for your property on a booking channel’s website — you will lose the direct booking and will have to pay the channel's commission for that reservation (however, you also risk the guest choosing to book another property on the channel).
To help increase direct bookings and reduce the need to pay commission (whenever possible), you can link your direct booking engine to your property’s website, and include a Book now button on your property’s website using links and widgets in order to link it to your direct booking engine.
💡 Note:
What if you don’t have a website?
Creating a website does not have to be complicated, time-consuming, or require a lot of technical knowledge. Our website builder helps you create a website quickly and easily, without the need to understand coding or hiring someone who does. Our user-friendly interface allows you to:
build your website's tabs and content with ease;
link to your booking engine in a few straightforward steps;
upload banners, photos, and even set up slides that change images every few seconds.
💡 A website provides numerous benefits to a property:
A 24/7 online presence and credibility
Reach potential guests from around the world
Ability to integrate a direct booking engine to your website, to increase commission-free bookings.
You can find out more about our website builder on siteminder.com.
Is a webmaster or web developer needed?
If you use our website builder — you can easily integrate your direct booking engine to our website builder without the help of a webmaster or web developer.
If your property already has a website — some sites require experience with HTML or CSS to integrate a direct booking engine, therefore you may need the help of a web developer.
💡 If you’re interested in using the website builder, feel free to contact us.
How do you integrate a direct booking engine with your website?
If you use our website builder — you can easily integrate your direct booking engine to our website builder without the help of a webmaster or web developer.
If your property already has a website — some sites require experience with HTML or CSS to integrate a direct booking engine, therefore you may need the help of a web developer.
Can the direct booking engine be integrated with social media pages?
Yes — linking your direct booking engine URL to your social media pages provides your guests with easy access to book at your property.
Facebook — add a direct booking button.
Instagram — add your direct booking link in your bio. (Learn more on this Instagram help article: Add a website to your Instagram profile).
TikTok — add your direct booking link in your bio. Only available for business accounts. (Learn more on this TikTok Business help article: Account Setup FAQs)
Twitter —add your direct booking link in your bio. (Learn more on this Twitter help article: How to customize your profile)
💡 You can also create a landing page with multiple links (including your direct booking engine) by using a third-party like Linktree. This is helpful if you want to link to more than one page.
Where else can you integrate your direct booking engine?
You can allow bookings through metasearch engines (Google Hotel Ads, Trivago, and Tripadvisor), so that whenever someone searches for your property they find info about it alongside a link to your direct booking engine.
How can you promote your direct booking engine to get more bookings?
There are many ways to make your direct booking engine as easy to find as possible; the more visible it is, the greater the chance of bookings. To learn about all you can do to increase your bookings, see section ‘Get the most out of your direct booking engine’ in our Planning ahead article.
💡 You can integrate with many digital marketing plug-in apps specifically designed for the hospitality industry so that you can reach more potential guests and increase your bookings.