Multiple Rates with Booking.com
Booking.com is the world's leading accommodation booking site, and they are continuing to grow into new markets while expanding their share in the markets they're currently in. That being said, they care about hostels, but they also really care about hotels. Many of the tools they build are designed to give those hotels that use their tools an edge over those that do not. This helps hotels become more competitive, which in turn leads to more bookings, benefiting Booking.com and making it more competitive against Expedia and other online channels. These tools aren't limited to hotels only. Hostels should stop being scared of dynamic rates and make good use of them. You see, the days of offering every guest the same rate are over. Revenue management was adopted into the travel space when airlines realized they would never fill the plane by offering each customer the same price, and dynamic fares have worked wonders for them. Hotels caught on and started doing this too with great success. Customers of both don't even bother to ask their peers where and how much they paid. Dynamic pricing has become a given. This can truly help fill occupancy and generate revenue when it is most needed. The thing is, even if you are not doing this, and it goes against some sort of code of yours, your competition will. It is inevitable. The mega hostel chains all do this, and being effective not only fills your hostels and increases your revenue, but it also makes you more attractive to investors if you plan to grow down the line (they hate outdated models).
Airlines realized they would never fill the plane by offering each customer the same price, and dynamic fares have worked wonders for them.
Ok, now back to the rates. I could delve into all kinds of details here, but there is plenty of information available out there. The first thing you have to do is set up promotional rates through Booking.com's extranet. Can't find them? Ask your account manager. Tell them you want to run multiple rates (yes, Booking.com has different extranet capabilities for different customers, but all you have to do is ask your account manager for changes). On a positive note, if you are integrated into a channel manager or PMS system, you are already on a more sophisticated version of their extranet. There are two ways to set up rates. Let's visit the easiest way—the Promotions Wizard. Here, they practically walk you through setting up your rates. They even have some basic configurations to make the process easier. You first name your rate. I suggest making it easy on yourself by naming the rate based on what it does, such as "LM 30%" for "last minute 30% off." You will thank yourself later. Here is what Booking.com has about setting up rates... More on setting up rates.
You add the discount, the restrictions (MaxStay and MinStay), and set availability here as well. But they leave some things out which you can later edit in your rates and availability section. Do not set the availability through this tool. Only wait until everything is all set up to avoid any chances of overbooking. To elaborate on these rates, head on to the Room/Rate Category settings to add even more features to make it more effective. Here you can adjust your booking window, make it non-refundable, and even limit who exactly this rate is offered to.
Now this page can get confusing, and if you run multiple rates, it can look like a huge list of tables. That's because they are displaying the rates in a two-dimensional format. That is basically the only way they can show you nested child rates, as mentioned in our article on Rate Mixing. They just list the child rates after the parent, one by one. Now you see how this page can get exceptionally large, but don't worry. That means you are executing a solid rate strategy.
You do more than just set up rates; you can set up multiple generations of rates to best execute your strategy.
Now you're ready to go. What's next? Well, if you have a multiple rate-enabled channel manager or PMS, it is best for you to add these rates into it as well. This will give you controls from there. It will be a pain to set up, but it will ultimately make your life easier and even provide you with tracking on which rates are the most effective. If you use a simple channel manager or PMS that has direct integration with Booking.com, you can set all your rates to run from the standard rate being pushed into Booking's extranet. Here, the standard rate will be the only rate that is a Parent. All other rates will be children or grandchildren because some rates can be children of a rate that is a child rate from the standard rate. Get it? You do more than just set up rates; you can set up multiple generations of rates to best execute your strategy. The most popular and super simple channel manager that you can use for this is myallocator, which is part of the Cloudbeds suite. I would get in and show you how to do this, but they already have instructions here.
For those of you who use no PMS or channel manager, I highly suggest you set your rates to be a child rate of the standard rate. That way you only need to update one rate instead of many. So now you can run these rates, but what if you want to stop them temporarily? Well, if you use a complex channel manager or PMS, you can do so from there. Otherwise, you can do so in Booking.com's extranet. You can easily control all the rates by changing the price or availability on the standard rate, but there are times when you want to keep the standard rate while disabling a promotional rate because, well, you don't need it. The best way to do this is through the Open/Close Room wizard. This is a bulk updater where you can open and close rates as well as rooms. You can even close specific rates on specific rooms. This tool is outstanding.
Please use caution with the updater if you are integrated with a channel manager or PMS. The complex ones will override the updates with the update, and the simple ones will override the standard. Just do a test and make sure everything goes smoothly so you don't have issues down the line. It is always a safe bet to contact your PMS or Channel Manager and get more details before you jump into a multiple-tier rate strategy, including your own length of stay pricing. Have you tried this? Not tried this? Why or why not? What was your experience? Feel free to add it to the comments below.