How Does HotelHub Work?

Your introduction to the world’s most powerful hotel booking software.

HotelHub makes TMCs more profitable, efficient, and accountable – while giving corporate clients the best experience and value. Here’s how we do it:

HotelHub gives TMCs access to non-GDS and GDS hotel content, by connecting APIs from multiple content providers into one, single source of truth. Flight to hotel attachment can be doubled with HotelHub, and the integration of all payment modes, including virtual cards, and agency PNRs makes mid and back office processes super efficient.

Perhaps most importantly, HotelHub tracks and reports on the performance of your hotel strategy – so you can show your clients, suppliers and your team exactly how much value you’re adding.

HotelHub eliminates the need to hop from platform to platform, and can be tailored to a client’s travel policy – with preferred hotels, negotiated rates, and more.

Read on, and we’ll reveal how the HotelHub platform works, what integrations and content sources it works with, and how it can solve the biggest challenges facing TMCs when managing hotel bookings.

Introducing HotelHub

HotelHub is a powerful piece of hotel booking software – and we’re proud of it.

It takes less than 10 seconds to book a hotel from a search, even with over 2 million unique hotels available.

More than 75,000 room nights are booked through HotelHub every day, and the platform handles $300 million in hotel revenue every month.

But the true power of HotelHub is in how it works.

Unlike other hotel booking software for TMCs, HotelHub solves the problems caused by a fragmented ecosystem:

• Having to shop from one website to another
• Low visibility on hotel volumes
• Low hotel attachment rates
• Productivity drops significantly when TMCs offer hotels
• A TMC’s customers can find better rates themselves online – or OTAs and Hotel Booking Agents pick up the TMC’s customers instead
• The management of hotel bookings is manually intensive and time consuming
• Duty of care becomes difficult when TMCs don’t know where travellers are staying

HotelHub is a single platform that brings together content from global distribution systems (GDSs), as well as from non-GDS sources – including OTAs (Expedia, Booking.com), aggregators, bed banks, and direct connects. With HotelHub, TMCs get access to all of these content sources in one easy to manage system.

HotelHub provides access with an agent interface for offline bookings, a self-booking tool for travellers and Travel Managers, and connects with online booking tools (like SAP Concur and Cytric) through the HotelHub API.

All bookings are centralised within HotelHub.

This gives TMCs total accountability, visibility, and control of the entire travel management process – and means that all hotel bookings can be tracked, monitored, and remain in-policy.

What does HotelHub do?

One of the biggest challenges facing TMCs is tracking and managing hotel bookings made on different platforms – and because of the ease of booking and choice available on platforms like Booking.com, TMCs can find themselves being bypassed entirely.

This makes it harder for TMCs to establish relationships and better deals with hotels, when they can’t actively track how they’re contributing to hotel attachment.

Hotels can be sourced through multiple content sources:

• GDS
• Aggregators
• Direct connects
• OTAs and other non-GDS content providers

Traditionally, hotel booking software for TMCs can only track and control the hotel bookings made through GDS content, from platforms like Amadeus and Sabre.

But this channel doesn’t always have the best rates, or cater to the client’s travel policy requirements – so Travel Managers and Agents have to scour multiple platforms and websites manually. This leads to the booking not being tracked and monitored, or even to clients booking themselves through OTAs.

HotelHub puts an end to all of this, and flight to hotel attachment can be doubled with the platform.

How is HotelHub different from other hotel booking software?

HotelHub is connected to over 30 hotel content sources. It collects data from all of them, and de-duplicates it. The content is then normalised; making sense of unstructured and structured content, to form a cohesive and accurate representation of each property.

The platform also allows TMCs to filter out-of-policy hotels, and assign preferred hotels.

Each property will only appear once – but users can compare different rates and then select the best one for their customer. For instance, the corporate may have their own negotiated rate, but the TMC negotiated rate may be the same or lower – and include additional amenities, as well as commission for the TMC.

The TMC can choose whichever rate best fits the goal. Where content providers return net rates, HotelHub also allows a percentage or fixed markup to be added.

So – HotelHub can provide GDS, Booking.com and direct rates for easy comparison – allowing the user to book their preferred rate within HotelHub. By doing so, the booking can be controlled and monitored.

This gives TMCs total transparency for the hotel booking process, and allows better rates and deals to be negotiated with hotels through a proven, ongoing partnership.

Best of all, it means travellers get incredible service and value from the TMC. They won’t have to book anywhere else, because TMCs can now sell beyond the GDS, and offer non-GDS content.

TMCs can give their customers better rates, and still make a profit – while retaining total visibility and control over their hotel strategy.

Key features

HotelHub offers best-in-class hotel booking software for TMCs, in an all-in-one solution, which communicates with all the other tools in your software stack.

The experience can be tailored to show:

• Preferred hotels, within travel policy
• Negotiated rates
• Rate limits
• Reason codes for out-of-policy bookings
• Payments – add and create Vcards

This means that the entire booking process can be managed end-to-end; from discovery to post-trip feedback.

Invoices and billing feeds are generated within HotelHub, independent of the GDS, which streamlines mid and back-office processes. Virtual cards can be added or created within the platform, from leading providers including barclaycard, Conferma, eNett and American Express vPayment – but any Vcard platform can be requested for inclusion.

HotelHub also offers a traveller-facing interface, branded as the TMC, keeping all interactions inside the platform.

HotelHub is completely neutral

There’s no conflict of interest with the TMC, who owns the commercial agreements with suppliers. The transaction fee model is an important benefit, as we connect to GDSs under the agency’s licence – allowing them to retain all incentives and commission.

So how does HotelHub make money? It’s simple; TMCs pay an agreed, fixed subscription to use HotelHub – we don’t take a cut or percentage of sales.

Productivity through automation and personalisation

HotelHub gives TMCs deep integration and automation for hotel bookings.

The hotel segment automatically gets added to the PNR, with back-office and itinerary notes. Single-click bookings can be enabled when payment details are available, further improving productivity.

HotelHub’s personalisation features learn how you work, to prioritise the most relevant options for hotels that can be booked immediately. Highly curated content is served, based on agency and client preferences.

These deep integrations and smart technologies allow for rapid improvements to daily workflow at TMCs, cutting out time-consuming manual work.

Analytics and reporting

With HotelHub, all bookings are recorded to the agency’s GDS PNR, regardless of the supplier used for the booking. Because everything becomes trackable inside HotelHub, TMCs gain valuable insight on performance.

You can actively monitor your hotel strategy and goals, versus real-world performance – with full visibility on hotel volumes and hotel attachment rates.

HotelHub’s analytics and reporting let you track savings, commission, and revenue – while making previously unknown data on hotel bookings available.

How and where does HotelHub fit in the TMC’s tool kit?

With its powerful integrations, automation, and smart script, HotelHub fits into the overall travel booking process seamlessly. It actively “listens” to what the user is doing, so it can offer the right solution at the right time.

The process can be as simple as this;

An Agent is selecting flights. A pop-up appears from HotelHub, offering two in-policy hotels suitable for the number of travellers, asking if they want to book. And if they do, HotelHub does the rest – drawing all the trip information into one place.

HotelHub is always on; users don’t have to worry about fitting it in or making it work. It just works!

And that’s because we’ve built it from scratch, to do all the things every other piece of hotel booking software can’t.

The tech behind HotelHub

HotelHub works under the SaaS model; you gain access to all the features of the platform. It can also be customised to do whatever a TMC wants it to do – including allowing them to become an OTA with a white label self-service booking tool. But at its core is a highly secure, robust system that proactively enables TMCs to achieve their desired outcomes.

100% cloud based, built on AWS

HotelHub is ISO-certified and highly secure. It’s hosted by AWS (Amazon Web Services), which is the world’s most trusted cloud computing solution, with high resilience and security. We simulate cyber attacks to stress-test our platform every month, finding and fixing any weak points along the way.

HotelHub is compliance-ready in the EU, USA, and beyond, with strict data security. The AWS platform also offers enhanced performance and best-in-class technology, for a faster user experience and global availability.

Works with everything – deep integrations

HotelHub gets content from all GDS sources, including:

• Abacus
• Amadeus
• Sabre
• Travelport

HotelHub also pulls data from a wealth of non-GDS sources – and TMCs can request additional custom integrations. Currently, HotelHub works with:

Virtual card payments

HotelHub accommodates all payment modes, including Agency or Corporate Bill-Back, usually with Virtual card providers. TMCs can choose their preferred virtual card providers to be added on demand, with implementation taking about a month.

Allocation management and direct connects – the HotelHub Extranet

The HotelHub Extranet (HHE) allows TMCs to manage negotiated rates, allocations, and allotments – for instant availability on the booking tool and through the HotelHub API.

Room and rate types can be created within HHE, and content can be managed by the hotel or the TMC. It will automatically display in HotelHub alongside other content channels, online or offline.

All static content (like address, contact information, cancellation policy, hotel facilities and amenities) can be added in, and specific customers can be set up – with their negotiated rates and details linked to the property. Yearly allocation can be set up and managed, too.

Bookings can be made, managed and reported on – all within HotelHub.

Rate Optimiser – a powerful add-on

Rate Optimiser is an additional reshopping tool, which automatically tracks the prices of hotel bookings.

This lets TMCs get better amenities for the same price, a more commissionable rate – or simply the cheapest price available. Even after booking.

Rate Optimiser will alert you when better rates become available. It continuously scans for new rates – from the time the booking has been made, until the existing booking can be cancelled without penalty. Our advanced AI and machine learning highlights the optimum hotel rate – eliminating manual price checks.

Rate Optimiser can automatically cancel the existing booking and rebook a better rate, or better amenities – without any manual intervention – once you confirm it’s clear to do so.

The HotelHub NG API

HotelHub’s secure, scalable next-gen API powers the world’s leading online booking tools. The OBT connects to HotelHub for the TMC, under the TMC’s licence – and facilitates seamless communication between disparate technologies, including:

• SAP Concur
• Traveldoo
• KDS
• Cytric
• GetThere
• Serko
• Deem

These API integrations are what allow TMCs to book hotels from any point-of-sale: the GDS terminal, a mobile application, or an online booking tool. HotelHub provides complete access to all hotel bookings by integrating with every available platform.

We’re continuously working to improve our hotel booking software and the technology that powers it – so if there’s anything HotelHub can’t do, just talk to us; we’ll make it possible.

Key information: what is HotelHub?

• HotelHub is a hotel booking platform that gives TMCs access to GDS and non-GDS hotel content, online and offline
• Consolidates, de-duplicates and normalises content from over 30 providers, making it easy for TMCs to compare rates
• Automates manual tasks, saving time and increasing productivity
• Simplifies mid and back office processes, with virtual card integrations
• Total flexibility – fully customisable and white label solutions can be built
• HotelHub technologies enable hotel strategy at TMCs – flight to hotel attachment can be doubled

HotelHub – smart hotel booking software

We’re HotelHub. Our smart hotel booking software for Travel Management Companies lets you book beyond the GDS. Enable your hotel strategy, today – get in touch.