The 8 best hotel reservation software tools in 2024

02 Dec 2024 · 12
Picture this: you’ve finally fixed the dates for an upcoming business trip, created itineraries, and booked flights — all that’s left is finding the best hotels for your employees’ stay.
A hotel reservation software is the answer to all your hotel booking worries. Hotel booking software processes your reservations and simplifies the online booking process. You have the ease of reserving your hotel rooms at negotiated rates without any commission charges.
With so many online hotel booking softwares on the market, choosing the perfect one for your needs can be time-consuming. That’s why we put together this guide on the eight best hotel management platforms — to help you make an informed decision, faster.
First, let’s take a closer look at hotel reservation software and what you should look out for when making your decision. 

What is hotel reservation software?

A hotel reservation software offers a secure dashboard to find and book hotel rooms. Once you’ve made your reservation(s), the tool will securely process all the data to inform the hotel website about your booking.
Travel managers can filter stays based on multiple factors, such as the length of stay, available occupancy, room type, check-in time, extra amenities, and more.
Consider your free accommodation booking system the digital version of a hotel front office. It gives you all the details you need to complete your reservation at the hotel so you can arrive stress-free.

What to look for in hotel reservation software

Choosing a hotel reservation software is not easy when you have so many options. It takes careful research and a lot of trial runs to finally find a good fit for your needs.
Here’s a helpful list of considerations when choosing a hotel booking software:
  • Ease of use: A hotel booking engine makes your job more convenient with a user-friendly booking engine, easy navigation, helpful search filters, and a large inventory.
  • Customization options: Every organization that organizes business travel for employees should create a compliance policy and budget to keep travel expenditure in check. A good reservation system allows you to integrate these policies to improve compliance.
  • Simple integration: Look for a tool that integrates with your current tech stack so you can make your workflows as smooth as possible.
  • Customer service: A safe and secure experience for your travelers is a must — maybe even more important than the booking process itself. Great customer service capabilities make sure your employees are well taken care of.
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Top 8 hotel reservation software

Keeping all of those features in mind, here’s our top hotel reservation software list to simplify your decision.

1. TravelPerk

TravelPerk is an all-in-one travel management solution for businesses of all sizes. TravelPerk boasts a massive inventory of hotels to ensure cost-efficient travel. The user-friendly platform removes the hassle from booking business travel and accommodation.
Even better, you can book all of your travel in one place:  flights, cars, trains, you name it.
Plus, unlike many other booking platforms for hotels, you pay only when you travel.
Main strengths:
  • Flexible travel: One of TravelPerk’s strongest features is its FlexiPerk solution which enables you to book refundable trips. If your plans change, you can cancel your reservations up to 2 hours in advance and get 80% of your money back.
  • VAT-recovery solution: TravelPerk makes VAT recovery simpler than ever. You can easily reclaim all your VAT expenses for trips within Europe, allowing you to save up to 25% on your travel expenditure. Unsure of how much you can save? Try the free VAT recovery calculator, and see how beneficial a VAT-recovery solution can be for your business.
  • Risk management solutions: TravelCare gives you a high degree of protection against any kind of travel risk or uncertainties with real-time updates, easy access to support, and complete visibility about possible disruptions. Safeguard your employees’ wellbeing and get complete visibility on their travels through a single dashboard.
  • Ease of use: TravelPerk is both simple to use, and easy to integrate into your business workflows. It requires no training and can be onboarded to your company workflow the same day.
  • 24/7 customer support: Get expert advice to plan the most convenient trips for your team. With TravelPerk’s seasoned support, planning trips is simple and efficient.
G2 Rating: 4.6 / 5 stars, as of October 2024
Capterra Rating: 4.7 / 5 stars, as of October 2024 
TravelPerk is a power-packed tool ideal for booking hotels at budget-friendly rates and planning complete itineraries flawlessly. Plus, you can benefit from a wide variety of other features to further simplify your corporate travel process.
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2. Airbnb for Work

As the name suggests, Airbnb for Work is an online reservation engine powered by Airbnb — the popular vacation rental website — but catering to business travelers. After all, sometimes you don’t want to stay in a hotel, even for business travel.
Airbnb for Work helps you find apartments, short-term or long-term rentals, boutique hotels, and more for a home-away-from-home experience.
Airbnb for Work also provides expense reports and duty of care solutions to help meet corporate travel needs.
Main strengths:
  • A large inventory ensures you have ample choice when it comes to stay options.
  • Flexibility of booking periods so you can book for extended periods rather than just overnight.
  • A work dashboard that’s integrated with an expense tracker and centralized billing.
  • Integrations for risk management to ensure a safe experience for your traveling employees.
  • Shared payment methods to make sure employees never have to pay out-of-pocket.
G2 Ratings: Not available as of October 2024
Capterra Ratings: Not available as of October 2024
Airbnb for Work is a viable accommodations reservation solution for businesses of all sizes to take care of all booking needs in one place.
If you’d like more from your travel solutions without losing Airbnb’s unique offerings, TravelPerk enables you to reserve Airbnb’s via its concierge service.

3. Booking.com

Booking.com is one of the leading names in the hotel industry with a dedicated offering for business travel. Its all-in-one tool gives travel agents and managers the convenience of planning trips from start to finish, and its hotel reservation system comes with a massive inventory of 3 million properties.
Main strengths:
  • Quicker bookings: Faster reservation process compared to legacy booking tools.
  • Cost-efficient: No subscription fees or ongoing costs, plus zero booking fees.
  • Risk management: Traxo shows you the real-time location and itinerary of all traveling employees to keep you up-to-date and keep employees safe.
  • Massive variety: Pick a hotel, hostel, BnB, vacation rental — they have millions of choices.
  • AI personalization: Get customized hotel recommendations based on your preferences.
G2 Ratings: 3.8 / 5 stars, as of October 2024
Capterra Ratings: Not available as of October 2024
Want Booking.com’s inventory alongside more comprehensive travel booking tools? It’s worth noting TravelPerk aggregates all of Booking.com’s inventory, and so much more, in its in-app search results.

4. Agoda

Agoda is an end-to-end travel management tool equipped with a white-label hotel reservation platform for travel agencies. The brand offers turn-key solutions for travel managers with its collection of 2.5 million properties spread across 200 countries including France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, and more.
Main strengths:
  • Robust API: Gives hassle-free access to its inventory and accommodation options for channel managers and travel agencies.
  • Greater flexibility: Make reservations for a few hours for meetings, quick trips, and more using the “day use” feature and save on costs.
  • Intuitive mobile app: Offers the convenience of booking on the go with complete functionality.
  • Rewards program: Earn incentives for your bookings and double down on savings.
  • Customer support: Available 24/7 in 16 different languages via call, app, and chat.
G2 Ratings: Not available as of October 2024
Capterra Ratings: Not available as of October 2024
For travel managers looking to find unique accommodation rates at reasonable rates and finalize bookings effortlessly, Agoda is a simple, effective solution.

5. Kayak

Kayak is a powerful hotel metasearch platform working with over 2,500 travel providers. The site searches through multiple booking platforms to show you the best deals for any property from top hotels in cities like London, Paris, and New York to independent hotels in smaller destinations.
You have the advantage of making your reservations without any extra expenses on subscriptions or hidden charges.
 Main strengths:
  • Map-based search: Simplify your search for hotels within budget through a simple map of your destination showing property and price markings.
  • Great filters: Filter through multiple properties to get the best-in-class rates and locations.
  • Policy compliance: All-in-one solution for approval and booking process in line with your corporate travel policy.
  • Accurate reporting: Assess your travel spend on accommodation with automatic reports.
  • Track prices: Keep tabs on the rates for your shortlisted properties before you book to ensure you’re getting the best deal.
G2 Ratings: Not available as of October 2024
Capterra Ratings: Not available as of October 2024
Kayak is a search aggregator for hotel reservations — it takes hotel rates from all over the web and puts them in front of you. Although it’s designed for individual travelers, its business solution empowers travel managers with greater control to book and manage trips.
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6. Hotels.com

Hotels.com is an online booking engine offering ample flexibility for hotel reservations:  It offers a free cancellation policy for most reservations. The platform also compiles over 3 million reviews to help you make the best decision for your travelers. Its sleek interface and seamless functionality make it a powerful tool for businesses of all sizes. 
Main strengths:
  • Rewards program: The One Key travel rewards program lets your company earn a variety of rewards the more you book.  
  • Cheaper prices: Save up to 20% with additional special offers through One Key.
  • Mobile app: Manage bookings even when offline using the Hotels.com mobile app.
  • Greater flexibility: Get options to book and pay later or cancel and secure a complete refund if your plans change.
G2 Ratings: Not available as of October 2024
Capterra Ratings: Not available as of October 2024
In short: Hotels.com comes with a comprehensive search engine to find the best properties along with guest reviews to make your choice. If you need flexible policies on all your travel reservations (not just hotels), you could save tens of thousands each year with TravelPerk’s FlexiPerk booking options — giving you 80% on canceled trips. 

7. Expedia

Expedia is a leading name in travel and hospitality OTAs. Although they’re more well-known for hotel deals in leisure travel, they’ve been making big leaps in the corporate travel sector as well. Using a search aggregator to scan many hotel options, Expedia does all the legwork to find the best hotels for any business trip.
Main strengths:
  • Virtual property tours: Get a complete 360-degree view and feel of your shortlisted properties before booking.
  • Low prices: Maximize savings on your bookings and optimize your revenue management with Expedia’s Special Rate hotels.
  • Unlock benefits: Book more to win rewards, perks, and better rates for your employees.
  • Guest reviews: Get first-hand reports on your chosen properties through 40M+ reviews.
  • One-click cancel: Cancel a reservation at any point and get a complete refund on most properties.
G2 Ratings: Not available as of October 2024
Capterra Ratings: Not available as of October 2024
Expedia is a well-known player in the hotel and travel management space and provides a straightforward solution for planning your business itineraries.

8. Amex Global Business Travel (GBT)

Amex GBT offers scalable and efficient solutions for corporate travel management — one of which is its accommodation booking engine. You can manage everything, from overnight stays to workcations, with greater visibility and guest experiences using Amex GBT’s hotel reservation platform.
Main strengths:
  • Personalized solutions: Travel consultants design customized itineraries for your needs.
  • Virtual card solution: Payments made easy for everyone using a single accessible credit card.
  • Guaranteed savings: Book rooms at discounted prices for 96% of your reservations.
  • Preferred Extras™ Hotel Program: Get additional discounts among other loyalty benefits
  • Extensive support: Find answers to any questions through well-defined customer support channels.
G2 Ratings: 4.2 / 5 stars, as of October 2024
Capterra Ratings: Not available as of October 2024
Amex GBT brings you ample savings and simple adoption with its tailored solutions for your organizational travel needs.
Click below for a more detailed comparison between Amex GBT and TravelPerk:
Why choose TravelPerk over Amex GBT?

Benefits of using hotel reservation software

But why not simply book directly through the hotel? Let’s look at a few of the perks for travel managers and business travelers of using a hotel room booking system:
  • Lower prices:  Compared to direct bookings on the hotel’s own website, a good business hotel reservation software often provides negotiated corporate rates. This price difference comes from the partnerships that are frequently developed between hotel booking software and the hotels themselves. By offering lower rates through these sites, hotels can benefit from a higher volume of guests.
  • Greater efficiency: Booking a hotel room through software that caters to business users is hassle-free and fast. You can search for hotel rooms that meet your needs, book available room(s), process payments instantly, and get your confirmations — all with little to no waiting time.
  • Improved compliance: Travel managers can outline their business policies within a hotel reservation software and maximize compliance — ensuring policy compliance even while giving employees more freedom to book their own travel.
  • Better user experience: With a hotel booking software, you can discover more accommodation options, faster. It also may give you options to automate pieces of the profit, such as booking approvals or policy compliance. Hotel reservation software also helps prevent overbooking issues by allowing you to search by current availability.
A reservation tool can help you streamline the booking process — whether you want to stay at small hotels or book a trip at a big hotel chain.

TravelPerk makes hotel reservations simple

Finding the ideal hotel reservation system for your business is no easy feat — there are plenty of options out there for your business, but not all solutions are created equal.
You ideally want to find a solution that not only helps with hotel booking, but also provides solutions for your corporate travel as a whole. Look out for flight booking solutions, as well as car hire, rail travel, and expense management solutions.
If you want a travel solution that facilitates corporate travel from start to finish, try TravelPerk today. Its industry-leading inventory offers you competitive rates for your travel, and its 24/7 customer support team works around the clock to ensure your traveling employees are never left in the dark.
Plus, the solution offers flexible booking options, comprehensive expense management capabilities, and carbon offsetting solutions to help you reduce the environmental impact of your corporate travel.
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