What are booking engines‘ main functionalities? How can booking engines sound as the welcoming voice of a receptionist? The present study investigates contents and functionalities of the main hotel chains\' booking engines worldwide. Measuring the interactivity of reservation systems and selecting relevant practices from 162 hotel chains, it helps to understand how to design or improve a booking engine. Results show a quite low degree of engagement with prospective customers, and suggest that a human-like interaction system may be the next step in this area. In other words: a booking engine should move from being just an inventory management system up to becoming a recommendation system. The increasing share requested by intermediating online travel channels may push hotels towards a higher degree of disintermediation, hence investing in their own booking engine.

1. 1
Lorenzo Cantoni, Vittoria Passini, Marco Faré, Alessandro Inversini
Executive summary
What are booking engines‘ main functionalities? How can booking
engines sound as the welcoming voice of a receptionist?
The present study investigates contents and functionalities of the main
hotel chains' booking engines worldwide. Measuring the interactivity of
reservation systems and selecting relevant practices from 162 hotel
chains, it helps to understand how to design or improve a booking
engine. Results show a quite low degree of engagement with
prospective customers, and suggest that a human-like interaction system
may be the next step in this area. In other words: a booking engine
should move from being just an inventory management system up to
becoming a recommendation system. The increasing share requested by
intermediating online travel channels may push hotels towards a higher
degree of disintermediation, hence investing in their own booking engine.
Booking engines
for hotel chains
Università della Svizzera italiana
Via Giuseppe Buffi 13 CH – 6904 Lugano, Switzerland
(e) info@webatelier.net (w) http://www.webatelier.net/
(t) +41 (0)58.666.4788 (f) +41 (0)58.666.4647
November 2010
Ver. 1.0

2. 2
Sponsored by
Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported
You are free:
to Share — to copy, distribute and transmit the work
Under the following conditions:
Attribution — You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in
any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).
Non commercial — You may not use this work for commercial purposes.
No Derivative Works — You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work.
With the understanding that:
 Waiver — Any of the above conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright hold-
er.
 Public Domain — Where the work or any of its elements is in the public domain under applicable law,
that status is in no way affected by the license.
 Other Rights — In no way are any of the following rights affected by the license:
 Your fair dealing or fair use rights, or other applicable copyright exceptions and limita-
tions;
 The author's moral rights;
 Rights other persons may have either in the work itself or in how the work is used, such
as publicity or privacy rights.
 Notice — For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work.
Source: creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/
A great thank to Ktimene Gembol who helped in making this report sound more English.

3. 3
The growing importance e-commerce is acquiring
in the travel and tourism industry, along with the
increasing interest of the hotel sector towards
internet marketing and e-distribution, are at the
basis of the present study about hotel chains‘
booking engines.
The fact that e-commerce is acquiring increasing
relevance is demonstrated by a recent research
published by HeBS: it announces that in 2009,
―54.2% of overall CSR [Computer Reservation
Systems] bookings for the top 30 hotel brands
came from the online channel, which constituted a
remarkable increase of 6.6% vs. 2008‖ (Hospitality
eBusiness Strategy, ―Not All Internet Bookings are
Created Equal‖, 2010). While on one side the
remarkable importance of internet as a selling
channel has been demonstrated, on the other side
market research proves that the share of bookings
coming from indirect online channels (e.g. OTAs) is
increasing. This has several implications for a
hotel, first of all an increase in costs. HeBS‘ study
further demonstrates that ―the difference between
the cost of a Direct Online Channel and Indirect
Online Channel booking is 8.3 times‖ (ibid.). These
data suggest the importance for hoteliers to foster
bookings on their direct online channel: in this
context, among other actions, the implementation
or improvement of an own booking engine may
become crucial. Customers are becoming more
and more demanding when buying online,
especially when they are buying an experience-
good such as a hotel room.
This paper presents an analysis of the booking
engines of 162 hotel chains worldwide. The study
offers an overview on hotel chains‘ booking
engines‘ state-of-the-art today at an international
level, understanding what they consist of, offer and
feature today.
Besides this overview, a set of relevant practices is
presented: a group of examples, taken from the
analyzed booking engines, illustrates significant
solutions for some pertinent issues.
The study also investigates the degree of
interactivity of booking engines: some elements of
a booking engine can improve customers‘
experience when booking a hotel room, attempting
to simulate the interaction with an expert human
operator. Results show how this aspect is lacking
in booking engines currently in use by the main
hotels chains worldwide.
Methodology
The group for the study has been defined as the
combination of two charts: the ranking of the main
hotel groups present in Italy (Federalberghi –
Confturismo, 2008) and ―The world's 300 largest
hotel operators‖ (HOTELS Magazine, 2009).
Some groups were excluded from this sample,
either because of the selection criteria (e.g.
management companies and travel agencies
online were not considered) or for technical
problems (e.g. the website was not accessible).
Following these criteria the result is a sample of
162 hotel chains.
The analysis focuses only on the booking engines
themselves, not on the websites at large.
An analysis grid has been developed ad hoc for
this work, based on exploratory research. The grid
is composed of 58 indicators, grouped into 11
categories, which represent the steps of a
reservation process as well as the key features/
services of a booking engine.
As an example, the category ―Booking engine
services‖ collects the links to access my
reservation and reservation guide/FAQs sections,
the currency converter tool and the newsletter
subscriptions among others.
In this analysis, only the presence or the absence
of the indicators has been assessed: a score of 1
has been assigned if the item is present, a score of
0 if it is not. The quality of contents is not evaluated
here. The analysis has been done in the period
September-October 2009.
Introduction
Search
Basic accommodation request
Multi-lingual
Booking engine services
Booking engine features
Results
Finalize reservation
Hotels’ policies
Security and privacy
No but
Yes and
Categories

4. 4
The category ―Search‖ groups together indicators
regarding the search function, i.e.: the options us-
ers are offered when looking for a hotel in a hotel
chain‘s website.
The category ―Basic accommodation request‖
groups together options users may find when look-
ing for hotels availability and prices. Indicators that
scored higher are the basic elements of the so
called quick reservation (the reservation box users
are provided to start their accommodation re-
search, a box which is frequently present on all or
many pages of the website). Functions, such as the
research based on rate type, room category and
budget, can be considered additional elements to
the basic ones: despite their usefulness, they are
present in a minority of cases.
The category ―Multi-Lingual‖ investigates the num-
ber of languages offered, the translation degree of
the booking engine and how it allows users to
switch from one language to another one. More
than half of booking engines offers the same struc-
ture for all available languages and allows users to
change language within the booking engine.
The fourth category, ―Booking engine services‖,
collects all the information and tools to assist cus-
tomers during the reservation process among other
services. Results demonstrate that a helpline, a live
chat or a hotel phone number are present in 44% of
the analyzed booking engines, while reservation
guide or FAQ are present in just 20% of them.
The fifth category ―Booking engine features‖ exam-
ines features of the booking engine interface; a
remarkable result is that the only 6% of booking
engines are single screen ones.
The category ―Results‖ collects contents and op-
tions presented in the booking step where results
are displayed. As demonstrated by the study, tools
like a map, sorting of results and comparing hotels
are present in a minority of booking engines, the
latter reaching a percentage as low as 6%.
In the category ―Finalize reservation‖ contents and
functionalities users can find in the last step of the
reservation have been considered.
―Hotel‘s Policies‖ and ―Security and Privacy‖ re-
spectively collect policies of the hotels regarding
the reservation and the information provided about
the security and privacy guaranty.
―No but‖ & ―Yes and‖
Previous studies assessed that the level of
interaction a customer can experience at the phone
with an operator is significantly better than the one
s/he can have while reserving online. In most of the
cases, reservation systems do work as binary
systems where the answer is ―yes‖ or ―no‖, while a
receptionist can suggest different options to satisfy
the client. That is the motivation to add these two
unusual categories within the grid.
We have therefore investigated whether current
booking engines support prospective clients with
this kind of functionalities.
These two categories provide customers with
suitable options to what they have asked for,
offering and suggesting services which they might
be interested.
―No but‖ options are proposals of alternative
solutions to the original inquiry set out by the user.
―No but‖ answers can be seen as opportunities for
the chains: they have the possibility to invite
customers to think about alternative choices to their
initial ones, which they may not have considered
otherwise.
―Yes and‖ category groups together some
proposals that are complementary to the main
reservation, such as proposals for upgrade.
The results of the analysis offer an up to date
overview on what booking engines consist of, offer
and feature. The findings of the analysis are
presented here: for each category a summary of
the main results is presented.
Findings
Fig. 1: The research in numbers
RESEARCH IN NUMBERS
Number of hotel chains 162
Number of hotel chains‘
nationalities
more
than 20
Number of indicators 58
Highest score obtained by an
hotel chain
39

5. 5
X axis: total scores got by hotel chains
Y axis: number of hotel chains
Fig. 2: Hotel chains‘ total score distribution
HOTEL CHAINS‘ TOTAL SCORE DISTRIBUTION
As a result of the analysis, every hotel chain got a
total score, corresponding to the number of
indicators its booking engine has. (Fig. 2)
A further analysis investigates the degree of
translation of booking engines (Fig. 3)
The results of the analysis demonstrate that the
greater the number of languages offered, the
higher the percentage of partial translation, and
vice versa. While 94% of booking engines offering
1 to 3 languages are completely translated, the
percentage dramatically decreases with the
increase of the languages offered.
―No but‖ & ―Yes and‖ findings
Despite the potential contribution which can be
offered by the ―No but‖ and ―Yes and‖
functionalities in letting booking engines much
more interactively involving customers, they are
present in a minority of cases (Fig. 4). Reason
for negative results and table of available dates
are the only indicators present in more than half
of the booking engines, in 70% and 43% of
cases, respectively. All other indicators are
positioned very low in the ranking of indicators
frequency.
Fig. 3: Languages offered in booking engines and de-
gree of translation
LANGUAGES
Category Indicator Frequency (%)
No but
Reason for negative results 70%
Table of available dates 43%
Proposal of another hotel of the chain 34%
Proposal of different room category 3%
Proposal of different dates 2%
Yes and
Total price updating when selecting
additional services
23%
Proposal of an upgrade
before confirmation/payment
4%
Reservation of servicesnot belonging
to the hotel
1%
Fig. 4: Scores obtained by the categories ―No but‖ and ―Yes and‖
Number of
languages
Number of
booking engine
Partial
translation
Full
translation
1-3 58% 6% 94%
4-6 17% 26% 74%
7-26 13% 57% 43%
27-29 12% 100% 0%
When considering proposals for a different acco-
modation (i.e. a suggestion of an alternative if the
one searched by the customer is unavailable), the
most frequent is another hotel within the same
chain, found in 34% of the cases. The other two
suggestions, proposals of different room categories
and dates, are present in a much lower percent-
age, only in 3% and 2% of booking engines.
Regarding the ―Yes and‖ category, results are even
lower: the category is ranked in the lowest position
with an average of 9% of presence. A proposal of
an upgrade before confirmation/payment is sug-
gested only in 4% of booking engines, while the
reservation of services not belonging to the hotel,
such as tickets for a theatre or a museum, was
found in only 1% of cases.
This suggests that there is a wide room for im-
provement in providing customers with suggestions
when the accommodation searched is not availa-
ble. The likeliness that a customer abandons the
reservation if no alternatives are proposed to him/
her is very high, certainly higher than if one or more
alternatives are offered. The simple statement ―No
availability‖ can be considered a failure for both
parties; by adopting a ―No but‖ strategy, hotel
chains can increase their revenues as customers
are helped in finding available alternative solutions.
A similar reasoning holds for the ―Yes and‖ solu-
tions: suggestions such as a room upgrade can
represent an added-value for customers who are
invited to easily compare the difference in price for
an upper-level room. Such a suggestion can in-
crease the likeliness of a customer choosing an
upgraded solution. Of course, both ―No but‖ and
―Yes and‖ are to be designed in a way that does
not become too intrusive and annoying for the us-
ers.

6. 6
Following the analysis of a wide range of booking
engines, a set of interesting practices has been
selected. Relevant practices consist of indicators
used and presented in a particularly effective way.
For instance, ‖Scope search / through POI [Point of
interest]‖, is an option which allows customers to
run the hotel search according to different scopes
(indicating an attraction). The practice presented
here is a list of all the attractions present in the se-
lected location: this solution helps users suggesting
them all the locations/attractions they may find in-
teresting to have near their hotel. Having a full list
of POI avoids potential obstacles in the research,
e.g. if the user cannot remember the exact name of
the attraction or if s/he does not know the spelling
of the attraction.
―Reservation guide/FAQ‖ are instruments which
assist consumers, providing specific information
about the reservation process. Two interesting
practices for this indicator represent different solu-
tions offering customers the-
se services/information. The
first one is the integration of
all customer-care communi-
cation channels (Fig. 5),
which can represent a real
advantage to customers
looking for an answer. With
one click, they are provided
with a range of possible
means of contact, from which
they can choose the one fit-
ting their information needs. The case just present-
ed highlights the advantage of integration, while the
second one offers contextual guides (Fig. 6), which
provide customers with specific and easily accessi-
ble information and guidelines during the reserva-
tion process. Contextual guides‘ main advantage is
keeping the customers within the reservation pro-
cess.
The ―Compare hotels‖ tool facilitates the compari-
son of different hotels of the same chain, allowing
users to easily see differences in price and ser-
vices offered by hotels.
Relevant practices
Fig 5: Help section
Westin.com
Fig 6: Quick reserve iStay booking engine
The example presented here has been selected as
relevant practice, because it shows the comparison
of the hotel in a very easy and effective way (Fig.
7). All the possible amenities/services/activities of a
hotel are listed in a table, divided by categories,
and the ones actually offered by a specific hotel are
marked.
―Search according to the budget‖ is a function al-
lowing customers to search availability and prices
of the hotels, which can accommodate a given
number of people in a certain date for a given
range of price (Fig. 8 and 9).
If the function is present in the booking engine it
would be advisable to offer a selection of main cur-
rencies, or, at a minimum, those corresponding to
the chain‘s customer base market. Alternatively, a
link to an external currency converter may be dis-
played.
―Flexible date search / weekend search‖ allows
customers with no fixed dates to quickly look for an
accommodation.
The solution presented here (Fig. 10) is considered
interesting because it allows customers to look only
for weekends. Customers can choose the month
and specify their weekend days.
Fig 7: Compare hotels section Accorhotels.com
Fig 8 and 9: Budget tools nh-hotels.com and Accorhotels.com

7. 7
With this set of options, customers can see all the
rates for the weekends of a whole month for a num-
ber of hotels with just one click.
―Proposal of another hotel of the chain‖
In the case presented (Fig. 11), the booking engine
shows the total price of the alternatives: it is calcu-
lated on the criteria (number of people and date)
selected by the customer. Thus, a customer who
already sees the total price can better and more
easily understand whether the alternative proposed
can be good for him/her.
The example below (Fig. 12) can be seen as a
―Proposal of different room category‖: when show-
ing the room available for the date requested by
the customer, the booking engine shows the una-
vailable room types too, with the possibility to easi-
ly access an availability calendar for each type.
Fig 10: Weekend search Harrahs.com
Fig 11: Hotel search results Disneyworld.com
Fig 12: Room search results Barcelo.com
Prof. Lorenzo Cantoni is scientific director of we-
batelier.net, professor and Dean of
the faculty of communication sci-
ences at the Università della Sviz-
zera italiana (Lugano, Switzerland).
He graduated in Philosophy and
holds a PhD in Education and Lin-
guistics. He is also director of the laboratories we-
batelier.net, NewMinE Lab (New Media in Educa-
tion Lab) and of eLab (eLearning Lab). His re-
search interests range from eTourism to eLearning,
up to eGovernment and Usability.
Lorenzo Cantoni is overall chair of the
ENTER2011—18th International Conference for
Information Technology and Travel & Tourism—,
that brings together international experts in all as-
pects of Information and Communication Technolo-
gies in Travel and Tourism.
Vittoria Passini, has graduated from
the Master in International Tourism
program at the Università della Sviz-
zera italiana with a thesis on online
booking engines for hotel chains.
She has a work experience in the hotel sector, as
well as research experience at the webatelier.net.
Marco Faré, researcher, holds a de-
gree in communication sciences,
obtained in 2003 at the Università
della Svizzera italiana and has col-
laborated with the webatelier.net
since same year. His field of interest
is the online communication and his
PhD research is focused on the visualization of
search engines' results.
Alessandro Inversini, managing di-
rector of webatelier.net, holds a PhD
in communication sciences. His field
of interest is on communication,
technologies and tourism. He has
worked with Prof. Cantoni since
2005, after the degree in Communi-
cation Sciences at the Università della Svizzera
italiana. He also worked as instructional designer at
the eLearning Lab where he coordinated three
Swiss Virtual Campus projects. His research inter-
ests are Cultural Tourism Online Communication,
Web Reputation and Web2.0 in Tourism.
Authors

8. 8
webatelier.net lab
The academic laboratory webatelier.net is part of
the faculty of Communication Sciences at the Uni-
versità della Svizzera italiana (USI), based in Lu-
gano, Switzerland. Webatelier.net is specialized in
research and development in the field of online
communication and ICT in general, stressing the
'human side' of it. Most activities focus on analysis,
design and promotion of the online communication
for hotels, destinations cruise companies and other
travel and tourism players. Its main field of re-
search is nowadays New Media in Tourism Com-
munication and it combines a strong academic
background with a relevant business experience.
Selected books
Cantoni L., Piccini C. (2004). Il sito del vicino è
sempre più verde. La comunicazione fra commit-
tenti e progettisti di siti internet. Franco Angeli, Mi-
lano.
Cantoni L., Di Blas N., Bolchini D. (2003). Comuni-
cazione, qualità e usabilità. Apogeo, Milano
webatelier.net white papers
Cantoni L., De Ascaniis S., Fedele S. (2010). Desti-
nation Marketing: why do tourists like a destina-
tion? A research in eTourism and Argumentation
Among recent publications by webatelier.net re-
searches:
Inversini A., Marchiori E., Dedekind C., Cantoni L.
(2010). Applying a Conceptual Framework to Ana-
lyze Online Reputation of Tourism Destinations. In
Gretzel U., Law R., Fuchs M. (eds.), Information
and Communication Technologies in Tourism 2010
(Proceedings of the International Conference in
Lugano, Switzerland, February 10-12, 2010),
Springer, Wien – New York, pp. 321-332.
Inversini A., Cantoni L., Buhalis D. (2009). Destina-
tions‘ Information Competition and Web Reputa-
tion. Journal of Information Technology & Tourism,
11 (2009), pp. 221-234.
Cantoni, L., Kalbaska, N., Inversini, A. (2009). E-
learning in tourism and hospitality: A map. Journal
of Hospitality, Leisure, Sport &Tourism Education,
8-2, pp. 148-156.
Inversini, A., Buhalis, D. (2009). Long Tail and
Tourism Destination Websites: A study on infor-
mation quality and information convergence. Pro-
ceedings of the CAUTHE 2009 Conference, Aus-
tralia, 10-13 February.
Inversini, A., Cantoni, L. (2009). Cultural Destina-
tion Usability: The Case of Visit Bath. In Hopken
W., Gretzel U., Law R. (eds.), Information and
Communication Technologies in Tourism 2009
(Proceedings of the International Conference in
Amsterdam, Netherland). Springer, Wien, pp. 319-
331.
Cantoni L., Marchiori E., Faré M., Botturi L.,
Bolchini D. (2009). A systematic methodology to
use LEGO bricks in web communication design .
Proceedings of the 27th ACM international Confer-
ence on Design of Communication (Bloomington,
Indiana, USA, October 05 - 07, 2009). SIGDOC
‗09. ACM, New York, NY, pp. 187-192.
Publications