What a hotel booking engine needs to have
What owners ask us before switching, told the way we explain it in a meeting.
What a booking engine is, and why it matters who makes it
A booking engine is the program that lets a guest pick dates, see a price and pay on the hotel's website, without going through Booking or Airbnb. It is the piece that turns a visit to your page into a direct, commission-free booking.
Most engines used in Argentina come from companies abroad or in Buenos Aires that never set foot in a mountain inn. Andes' engine is programmed from El Chaltén, with developers from Argentina, with international collaborators, and tested in real lodgings in Patagonia before we offer it. It shows in small things: it works on a single connection, speaks Spanish, invoices with ARCA and knows what a season is.
Your price next to Booking's on Google
When a traveller searches for a hotel by name, Google shows the platforms' prices and, when it has the data, the official site's. That data does not appear on its own: someone has to publish it in the format Google understands and keep it current. The Andes engine does it with every change: free nights and the real price per room.
The effect is simple. The guest who had already chosen you sees that your website has the same price or a better one, and books there. The night is all yours. And since the same data is read by the AIs that now recommend where to sleep, you also show up when someone asks an AI.
Why your website loses without you knowing: Genius and deals
Booking changes the price the guest sees without telling you: Genius gives members 10 % or 15 % off, there are mobile and last-minute deals. Expedia and Trip.com do the same. You loaded 100, they show 90, and your website looks expensive next to your own price.
A serious booking engine has to tell you. Andes' price radar compares each morning what the platforms show against your direct price and warns you with the maths done. What matters is what comes next: you correct it from your channel manager, in the same panel, and the change reaches every channel in seconds.
Engine and channel manager in one panel
An engine that lives apart from the channel manager makes you load prices twice and pray no booking overlaps. At Andes they are the same thing: the calendar your website sees is the one Booking, Airbnb and Expedia see. Change once, it changes everywhere; a booking comes in, the night closes everywhere.
From that calendar you do everything of the day to day: price by range, minimum stay, close nights, group or split rooms, move a guest, cancel. No more four extranets.
Agencies with their own login
Many lodgings in Patagonia sell a good share through travel agencies, and that relationship runs on messages. The engine gives each agency a user and a password for a section of its own inside your channel manager, where it sees only its allotments and bookings and makes requests directly.
The hotel receives the proposal, accepts or declines it, or talks to the agency. If it accepts, the booking carries the agency's name, its commission and, where it applies, the invoice. Fewer messages, no night sold twice, and a private relationship between your hotel and each agency.
Made in Patagonia, supported by the people who programmed it
Support is on WhatsApp, in Spanish or English, on Argentine hours, with the person who wrote the system. No tickets, no help centre in another language. If you use HotelRunner, Cloudbeds, Todo Alojamiento or another system today, we do the move ourselves: your future bookings and prices, without closing your channels.
We don't sell plans: we look at your case and give you a price. No commission per booking, no minimum term. We work with lodgings in Argentina, Chile and Peru.