Hotel overbooking is a situation where a hotel receives more reservations than the number of rooms available.

Apart from that, guest dissatisfaction can also affect the hotel’s reputation if guests write about their disappointment on online platforms. This can affect the perception of your potential guests who might plan to make future reservations.

In the hotel industry, this situation often occurs and can result in guest dissatisfaction. Guests who do not get the room they want will certainly feel disappointed and dissatisfied.

Some of your loyal guests may also switch to another hotel if they experience this overbooking situation. To avoid overbooking hotel, you must have the right strategies.

Strategy to Avoid Overbooking Hotel

The following are several strategies that you can apply to avoid overbooking.

1. Monitor Room Availability in Real time

Monitor room availability in real time to avoid a backlog of reservations that exceed your hotel’s capacity.

By monitoring closely, you can know when to stop accepting reservations or adjust rates to encourage guests to choose another date.

2. Update Inventory Regularly

To avoid hotel overbooking, you always remember to update inventory or room availability on all channels such as Online Travel Agent (OTA).

If you miss even one channel, there is a big possibility that there will be overbooking or double booking.

3. Establish a Clear Cancellation Policy

Establish a clear cancellation policy to minimize the risk of overbooking.

Make sure this policy is communicated to every potential guest when they make a booking.

With this information, they can understand what the consequences will be if they cancel or change their reservation.

4. Set Overbooking Limits

Set wise overbooking limits based on your experience and business trends. Make sure these limits are updated regularly according to changes in demand and your hotel capacity.

Consider offering special packages or promotions to shift demand to less busy periods. Additionally, you can utilize technology and data analysis to predict future demand.

With all this, you can make smarter decisions about the number of rooms you can sell without the risk of overbooking.

5. Effective Communication Between Departments

Make sure there is effective communication between the departments involved, such as the department that manages the front office and those who accept online orders.

By sharing information on time, you can avoid mistakes in managing reservations and reduce the risk of overbooking.

6. Prioritize Impacted Customers

If overbooking occurs, prioritize affected customers by providing appropriate compensation, such as a room upgrade or discount on their next stay.

Maintain clear and transparent communication with customers to ensure their satisfaction.

7. Collaborate with Other Hotels

Collaborating with other hotels can also be a solution to prevent the negative impact of overbooking. Partner with hotels that are at the same level as your hotel, based on star level.

When your guests have already arrived but you don’t have a room, you can offer the guest to another hotel as an alternative place to stay.

Especially for exclusive guests, you should record them so that they are not taken to other hotels and remain at your hotel.

8. Use the Channel Manager System

To minimize overbooking, you can also invest in a reliable system such as Hotel Channel Manager.

Channel Manager is a technology that will make it easier for you to manage room availability in each hotel distribution channel.

You no longer need to update or update each room availability on each channel because all of those can be done on one dashboard.

For example, your property is registered with more than 1 online travel agent. You can check price and room availability via the dashboard.

This will certainly save more of your time because you no longer need to update one by one at all online travel agents.

That’s the discussion regarding strategies to avoid overbooking. Hopefully, it can help your hotel business.

Referensi:
ChatGPT
https://www.mews.com/en/blog/avoid-overbooking-hotel
https://qloapps.com/strategies-to-avoid-overbooking/