It is very important to have detailed descriptions and good quality photos from the hotels. It is also essential to indicate the discounts, offers, the services of the hotels and to detail what the price of the room comprises (breakfast, parking, internet/Wi-Fi use, sauna, fitness room, etc.).
The content on many hotel reservation systems is becoming more and more similar as more hotels sign up to all the sites. Companies thus have to either rely on specially negotiated rates with the hotels and hotel chains or trust in the influence of search engine rankings or find out a special service to draw in customers.
An online reservation system has to be fast, user friendly, and prices have to be comparable. Hotel reviews, customer ratings, travel information and advice are very useful. It would be a plus to offer festival and other programs for the people who cannot decide where to spend a free weekend. Special offers, discounts, extras, a rewarding program are all well received. Confirmation of a reserved room always has to be correct, quick and detailed. Information about the destination is important too.
For hotels it would be a good possibility to be able to answer to the negative criticism.
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Agoda
Agoda is an Asian company, with more than 10.000 hotels from the Asia-Pacific region.
Agoda is part of Priceline.com, as Booking.com.
More than 155.000 accommodations are available all over the world.
The website is available in 32 languages.
Travelblog. More than 100.000 hotel reviews and customer ratings.
Agoda is the only online reservation system with a rewards program for the registered clients. It works from 2004. People can earn points from the first reservation and then use them across the site to get discounts.
Multilingual call centre, 7/24 support
Award winning website – 2008, Best Accommodation website in Asia
User friendly, no need to register to book a room, no reservation fee
Lots of additional information about the destinations
Competition:
- Booking.com
- More than 105.000 accommodation in all over the world (in 92 countries)
- The website is available in 41 languages
- No reservation fee
- Users don’t have to register to reserve a room
- No need to pay before the arrival
- Guest can arrange every aspect of the reservation online
- Multilingual customer service and call centre
- Established in 1996
- Feedbacks from the hotels
- User friendly
- European company (The Netherlands)
- Hotels.com
- More than 130.000 hotels from all over the world (in more than 60 countries)
- Multilingual call centre 7/24
- More than 1.300.000 feedbacks from hotels
- Established in 2002
- Last minute offers
- Users don’t have to register to reserve a room
- The website is available in more than 41 languages, but not every part of the page
- No cancellation fee
- No need to pay before the arrival (in most of the cases)
- Possibility to reserve by phone
- American company (USA)
- Hrs.com
- The website is available in more than 30 languages
- More than 250.000 hotels from all over the world
- Award winning company
- Established in 1972 and from 1995 it appears on the Internet
- Multilingual call centre
- Possibility to reserve rooms for conferences and rooms for groups
- User friendly, lot of information about the hotels, it appears in a separated window, feedbacks
- Hotels by themes – golf, luxury, design, top10, etc.
- Offers discounts
- Possibility to rent cars
- No reservation fee
- European company (Germany)
- Hotel.info
- More than 210.000 hotels from all over the world
- More than 1.000.000 hotel reviews
- No reservation fee
- No cancellation fee
- Payment direct at the hotel
- The website is available in more than 30 languages
- Possibility to book for groups
- Possibility to reserve by phone
- Special discounts for business travellers
- Established in 2006
- European company (Germany)
- Ebookers.com
- Possibility to book flights, hotels, rent cars and packages
- Extras like travel insurance, visas to Australia, airport car parking
- More than 86.000 hotels
- Multilingual call centre
- It is present on Facebook and Twitter
- Travel blog and customer hotel review
- Information and travel advice online and via call centre
- Weekly newsletter in e-mail
- Established in 1998
- European company (UK)
- Hostelworld.com
- World’s number one hostel booking website
- Budget, independent, youth travel market
- 24.000 properties(hotels, hostels, camp sites, B&B) in more than 180 countries
- Travel social network, customer ratings and reviews, videos, guides
- Travel Services – online travel store (discounts when buying f. e. travel insurance, Sim cards)
- No need to register to book a room
- No reservation fee
- Established in 1999
Summary:
There are several websites that specialize in searches for deals on rooms.
Apart from the Hostelworld.com website, which aims the budget travellers, all the other websites are for the business and leisure travellers.
Most of the pages offers a wide range of hotels – from budget hotels, hostels to 5* hotels.
On hrs.com one can search hotels by themes, like golf hotels, designer hotels, etc. And they also offer special discounts.
Hotel.info has a special program for business travellers with discounts.
On hrs.com and hotel.info there is a possibility to reserve accommodation for groups.
All pages work in the same style – no need to register to book a room, no reservation fee, immediate confirmation of the booking, no need to pay at the time of the reservation, instead pay at the time of check in or check out. Hotel.info and Hotels.com claims having no cancellation fee.
Agoda is the only website with a rewarding program for the clients.
Most of the websites has a wide choice of accommodation (more than 100.000 hotels) all over the world. On ebookers.com there are fewer hotels, but there are additional services – flight booking, car rental.
On each website we can find also chain hotels and independent hotels.
Agoda has lots of information from the destinations and all of the websites has hotel reviews and customer rating. Ebookers.com is present on Facebook and Twitter where they provide additional travel advice.