Hotel booking calendar: How do hotel reservation calendars work?

What is a hotel booking calendar? 

A hotel booking calendar is a type of digital calendar from which a hotel can manage all of its bookings. Imagine the Google or Outlook calendar attached to your email, but purpose-built for hotels.

The best booking calendars grant a hotel the ability to manage their reservations from a single screen: you can view past reservations, modify existing reservations, cancel future reservations and more.

A hotel reservation calendar grants a hotel a clear and comprehensive view of their reservations, which can help you understand peaks and troughs in demand, streamline operations, and ultimately maximise revenue.

In order to get full value from your hotel booking calendar, it is critical that it integrates with the tools that make up your larger hotel property management system (PMS).

Advantages of using a hotel reservation calendar

Hotel booking calendars form a one stop shop to view and manage all your hotel bookings. If you choose a capable tool, like the Little Hotelier’s front desk calendar, you are provided a clear picture of your upcoming reservations, which you can view, modify or cancel right there in the calendar.

Rather than working across a number of different calendars – those of Booking.com, Expedia, Airbnb and even Google (for direct bookings) – a good calendar will put all the relevant information on the one screen.

But the functionality of the Little Hotelier calendar doesn’t end at the front desk. It’s a place where all your staff – reception, management, housekeeping and more – can easily check what today, tomorrow and the future holds.

And when you integrate your calendar with your website’s direct booking engine, it can be used by guests as an accommodation availability calendar. They can book themselves in, and this self-service direct booking functionality can greatly reduce the time-consuming admin of taking reservations manually. In fact, Little Hotelier can save you up to 35 minutes per booking!

Hotel booking calendar example

What does an intuitive, capable and easy to integrate hotel booking calendar look like? Here’s an example:

How a hotel booking calendar works

How do you successfully find, implement and operate a hotel reservation calendar? Simply follow these steps:

Step 1: Find the right tool

The first and most important step is to choose your calendar. While there are standalone booking calendar tools, these function much like the personal calendar on your smartphone, in that they don’t easily connect to or integrate with your booking engine or PMS.

A tool like the Little Hotelier front desk calendar, however, seamlessly integrates with the Little Hotelier booking engine and PMS. This means that when a guest makes a direct booking, the calendar is automatically updated, as are all the calendars across every OTA and booking channel.

The ideal calendar will also be easy to read, intuitive to use and offer good functionality, allowing you to edit reservations without having to navigate to a different screen.

Step 2: Set it up

Depending on the hotel booking calendar you choose there may be some set up involved in order to make it as functional and easy to use as you need it to be.

The good news about choosing the Little Hotelier calendar is that it’s already optimised for small, independent hoteliers. As a key feature of our solution, it comes pre-loaded in our PMS, ready to be filled with bookings!

Step 3: Integrate it with your site

By integrating your calendar with your site, you grant potential guests the ability to make their own bookings (with the help of our direct booking engine) which can save you an incredible amount of time.

Unlike other calendars, integration with the direct booking system is instant and automatic in Little Hotelier. You are even able to customise how the Little Hotelier calendar is presented to guests through your direct booking engine.

Step 4: Make the most of it

A centralised calendar can prove an incredible tool for the operational accuracy, efficiency and productivity of your hotel. But in order to realise this potential, you must do all that you can to make the most of the opportunities the tool offers, including training your team up on using it.

Best practices for setting up a hotel room reservation calendar

Integrate it with your other tools

Get full value from your hotel room reservation calendar, and avoid double bookings, by ensuring it connects and communicates seamlessly with your hotel property management tools and systems.

Offer direct bookings

A capable calendar is a key element in granting your guests the ability to make direct bookings, which make you more money than those secured through OTAs that charge high fees.

Avoid using other calendars

Don’t be tempted to work within the calendars offered by different OTAs. Ensure all your booking channels connect and sync to your main accommodation booking calendar, and use it exclusively.

Set key event reminders

From booking in housekeeping to sending a guest a follow-up email after they check out, use calendar reminders to ensure operational processes are followed.

A hotel booking calendar designed for small accommodation providers like you

Take back control of all your check-ins, bookings and invoices, all from the one screen. With the help of the Little Hotelier calendar and direct booking engine, you’ll enjoy more freedom in how you manage your property, and more command over your future.

The Little Hotelier direct booking engine and calendar are a part of our all-in-one reservation system which can increase hotel revenue by up to 43%!

• One screen to rule them all: Enjoy total control over your hotel reservations through our single, simple portal.
• Let guests book directly: By granting guests access to your calendar through your website, you give them the power to make their own reservations. By offering direct bookings, and avoiding high OTA fees, you can make significantly more money.
• Save 35 minutes per booking: Simple, intuitive and ultra-connected, the Little Hotelier calendar can increase the efficiency of your front desk exponentially – you can save up to 35 minutes on every reservation!