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Software · Booking software

Online booking software for tourism

We connect your booking system to your website and the tools you already use. We work with accommodation providers, experience operators and destinations, including projects where different products follow different rules for availability and payment.

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The overnight stay is no longer the only thing you sell

A property that sells nothing but nights has become a rare thing. There is the Friday tasting, the airport transfer, the front-row umbrella, the guided tour. Almost always these get booked elsewhere, through an email, a phone call, a sheet of paper at the desk. The website sells the room; the rest stays outside it.
The problem isn’t a missing piece of software. It is that each thing has rules of its own, namely a different unit to hold, a calendar with a different shape, cancellation terms that look nothing alike. Putting them in one basket means making them coexist without one breaking the other.
We also deal with these questions in two platforms of our own, StayMore and Ombrellone.it. In those projects, we are the client. This page covers online sales, including rooms. What happens inside the property is a separate area, covered on the hotel software page.

A booking engine has to earn its place on your site

A booking engine turns your site into a sales channel, with dates, rooms, rates, confirmation and payment without leaving your own domain. Five things decide whether it works.

Availability from a single source

The engine has to read the same calendar as every other sale. Working from a separate record, it will eventually confirm a room that is already taken, and you are the one making that phone call. We check where availability comes from and how often it refreshes.

Rates, seasons and restrictions

Minimum stays, a non-refundable rate in exchange for a discount, a long-weekend price, an offer that only applies on your own site. If changing a price takes six steps, that price will stay as it is all summer. In the demo, try setting up a real rate.

Payments, deposits and balances

Payment in full at booking, a deposit now with the balance on arrival, or a card held as a guarantee with nothing charged. Each choice changes your no-shows and your cash flow. We connect the common payment providers and make sure the accounts get the data without anyone retyping it.

Cancellations the system applies itself

Free cancellation up to three days before, a penalty of one night, a non-refundable rate. The rules belong inside the system, not only on your terms page. When the software applies them, nobody at the desk decides case by case.

Booking from a phone

Most bookings start on a small screen, so what counts is the number of steps, the length of the form and the moment the final price appears. We look at where people stop, and it is usually one field too many.

Booking through an OTA or on your own website?

You make the sale either way, but fees, guest data and control over the terms are different.

AspectBooking through a portalBooking on your own site
Cost per bookingA percentage on every stay, including guests who come back a second timeNo commission to an intermediary, but you still pay the system fee and the payment charges
Guest detailsContact runs through the channel, often with masked addressesRecords and contact details stay yours, before and after the stay
Terms of saleThe channel’s formats and rules, the same for everyone listed on itRates, packages and cancellation rules are yours to set
Services and experiencesThe stay gets sold; the rest follows later, if someone takes care of itOffered in the same basket, before the booking is confirmed
Before arrivalCommunication goes through the channel, with its limitsYou can write to the guest from the moment they confirm
What it takes to workInstant visibility, with no work on your own siteA site people find and an engine that doesn’t lose them along the way

Rooms aren’t the only thing you sell online

Same principle, very different objects. Each has rules of its own and has to be treated for what it is, not forced into the shape of a hotel room.

Experiences, tours and guided visits

Fixed departure times, a minimum and maximum number of participants, the language of the guide, the meeting point, weather that calls it off. The system closes a departure when places run out, reopens it when someone cancels, and warns everyone booked when it is called off.

Packages and combinations

Two nights plus a tasting, a room with a transfer, a weekend with museum entry. A package is the sum of separate availabilities, so if one is missing it must not be sellable, and if the customer cancels, both have to be released.

Umbrellas and spots on the beach

A beach club sells the row, the position, the extra sunbed, a single day or a full week. That needs a map the customer picks from, and a quick way to put freed-up places back on sale.

Activities and rentals

With bikes, courts, function rooms and sports equipment, a time slot gets booked and the item has to be free again straight afterwards. Slots are short, plans change constantly, and a late return drags the next booking with it.

Services during the stay

Late check-out, spa, restaurant, transfers, things to do nearby. These are the easiest sales you have, because the guest has already chosen you. What is missing is somewhere to buy them and the right moment to offer them.

Opening up online sales, step by step

You don’t switch everything on at once. Start with what you already sell well face to face, and add the rest once the first piece runs on its own.

  1. 01

    Products and rules, lined up

    Real products, prices and rules, meaning how many units, at what times, with which constraints, supplied by whom. Almost always the rules written down nowhere outnumber the ones on paper.

  2. 02

    Choose or build

    For rooms the market is wide and configuring an existing engine properly is often enough. For experiences, beach spots, rentals and mixed packages the off-the-shelf product covers only part of the ground. We say which route makes sense before we start, not after trying the other one.

  3. 03

    Connect availability and payments

    The engine is wired to the source of the calendar and to the payments, and you settle which one wins when two systems disagree. This is also where you decide the most awkward case of all, that is, the payment goes through and the booking is not recorded. With no rule written in advance, somebody sorts that out by hand, every time.

  4. 04

    Test on one product only

    One room type, or one experience, goes live with real dates and real payments. You watch what happens when someone cancels and when a card is declined.

  5. 05

    Open it all up and read the numbers

    Searches that returned nothing, baskets abandoned halfway, steps where people stall, products nobody buys. The first few weeks are for removing friction and fixing prices and descriptions.

Frequently asked questions

Booking software sits at the front, because it is what the customer sees while choosing dates, places or departures, paying and getting a confirmation. The management system sits behind it and runs the property, from the reservation ledger to the accounts. The two have to read the same availability, or you sell what isn’t there. The internal system is the subject of our hotel software page.

Two pricing models lead to two very different sums. A flat fee, per room or per booking, is something you can budget for. A share of revenue costs nothing until you sell, then grows with your turnover, and at high volumes it becomes the heaviest line of all. Either way there are still the payment provider’s fees and the configuration work, which varies with how many things you sell.

Yes, and it is the reason this page exists. What it takes is a system that doesn’t treat an experience as a miniature hotel room, because the unit being held is different, so is who decides whether the departure goes ahead, and so is the moment you take the money. One order has to carry a single payment, two separate availabilities and two sets of cancellation rules. Plenty of engines built for rooms alone don’t get there.

It is decided product by product, because the risk differs. On a room in high season a deposit at confirmation with the balance on arrival makes sense; on an experience with limited places, taking payment up front is safer, because a place held and unpaid is a place lost; on a rental a card held as a guarantee is often enough. Refunds are issued by the system, following the rule already written into it.

Yes, and it is a growing part of the work. A beach club, a guide running group tours, a bike hire business and a consortium selling the experiences of a whole area all sell limited availability tied to a date and a time, which is exactly what booking software is for. What changes is the unit sold and the rules around it, not the machinery underneath.

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