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What is a hotel reservation system and why is it important?

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The information is then populated into the PMS and distributed to the hotel’s booking channels with the help of channel management software. These channels may include the hotel’s website booking engine, online travel agencies (OTAs), the global distribution system (GDS), wholesalers, and metasearch sites.

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What is a channel manager? All you need to know

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And even then, manually-managed distribution is risky: any delays in updating rates and availability on a channel’s extranet could mean selling a room that isn’t available or selling at a lower rate, which can lead to overbooking and sub-optimal yield management. The same happens with a cancellation.