Recap 2023: RoomRaccoon Product Milestones

The hospitality industry is constantly changing, and we’re right there with you, innovating to keep up with today’s guests’ ever-evolving expectations. The product team at RoomRaccoon continued to spearhead innovative and practical ways to improve our platform and empower our hoteliers to be more successful. 

Entering 2024, we thought we’d take the opportunity to reflect on — and share — some of what we’ve accomplished in 2023, including snagging a prestigious award and releasing our new report, Unpacking Europe’s Independent Hotel Industry Trends, which highlights trends and insights in the European hospitality industry.

Growing the A-Team Behind the Scenes

Let’s kick off this reflection by delving into our growth. We’re thrilled to share that this year, we’ve bolstered the RoomRaccoon product team with the addition of nine new members. Our team now boasts a diverse skill set, encompassing product managers, finance and payment product specialists, and product engineers.

RoomRaccoon Recognized as the World’s Best Hotel Channel Manager in 2023

RoomRaccoon has been awarded the World’s Best Hotel Channel Manager in the annual World Travel Tech Awards 2023. The award is the latest in RoomRaccoon’s long list of accomplishments as we continue on our mission to empower independent hoteliers around the world.

RoomRaccoon boasts one of the fastest hotel channel managers on the market with 5-second synchronization. The channel manager seamlessly connects to over 100 regional and international booking channels and communicates live rates and availability with its reservation calendar and all connected booking channels.

Product Milestones in 2023: A Chronicle of the Guest Journey 

We introduced a lineup of cutting-edge features, enhancements, and seamless integrations to turbocharge your operations and improve the guest journey, from initial research to post-stay.

Read on for more details!

1. Research 

Raccoon Price Checker

Feature: Booking Engine Price Comparison Widget

Travelers don’t make quick booking decisions; they like to compare options and pricing. Introducing Raccoon Price Checker, a handy price comparison widget in the booking engine that compares your rates on popular booking channels (Booking.com, Expedia, Agoda, and Airbnb) to your direct booking rate. This helps guests see they’re getting a better deal by booking directly, and you avoid hefty commission fees. 

2. Booking

Booking Proposal

Are inquiries taking up too much time? Create provisional bookings and share booking proposals with your potential guests. Upon confirmation and prepayment, the system will automatically approve the booking and transform the reservation status from ‘Provisional’ to ‘Confirmed.’

Multi-Property Booking Engine

Feature: Booking Engine Multi-Property Switcher

Do you run a multi-property hotel? You can now showcase all your properties on a single booking engine page. The convenient dropdown menu lists your property locations, maximizing occupancy across your entire portfolio. This feature enhances RoomRaccoon’s centralized property management.

Room Allotment

Feature: Group Booking Management

Managing group bookings has never been easier with Room Allotment. This feature lets you create a group booking by allocating availability to a group profile in just a few simple steps. You can also accommodate different types of group business with a custom booking engine link. Learn more about managing group bookings with Room Allotment. 

HyperGuest

Integration: Hotel Distribution and Connectivity Platform 

We’ve welcomed HyperGuest to the RoomRaccoon Marketplace. The two-way API connection with RoomRaccoon’s Channel Manager ensures that inventory and rates are communicated to HyperGuest across all channels in real-time so hoteliers can capture more bookings at low commissions from travel providers like agencies and consortia, specialized OTAs, and corporate travel services.

Learn more about the HyperGuest integration here.

3. Arrival

Roommatik

Integration: Self-Check-In Kiosk

We’ve welcomed Roommatik to the RoomRaccoon Marketplace. Roommatik specializes in the seamless integration of self-check-in machines that elevate your property’s hospitality experience. The state-of-the-art technology ensures your establishment boasts a 24-hour unattended reception, fully compliant with all the legal requirements.

Learn more about the Roommatik integration here.

4. Stay

F&B List

Feature: Enhanced Food & Beverage Management

Stay on top of your Food & Beverage (F&B) requirements – now including an overview of breakfast, lunch & dinner. We’ve introduced activation toggles in the add-on set-up section to easily assign add-ons for meal service times in the F&B list. You can also easily distribute your daily F&B plan to your team by printing it out or sending it via email.

Akia

Integration: Guest Messaging Platform

RoomRaccoon and Akia work together to provide a seamless guest experience. The RoomRaccoon PMS sends all guest data to Akia, which lets hoteliers personalize guest engagement during the guest’s stay (pre, during, and post) with exciting, modern features.

Learn more about the Akia integration here. 

Detailed & Daily Revenue Reports

Feature: Introducing Revenue Categories

You can now create revenue categories such as “food” or “tours” and assign relevant bookable add-ons to understand your revenue breakdown better. This detailed analysis can help you streamline supplier settlements, identify areas for improvement, and make data-driven decisions that will help optimize your hotel’s revenue and performance.

Advanced Revenue Reporting

Feature: Year-on-Year Reports and Actual vs. Budget Reports.

Our premium and enterprise users can access advanced reports that provide comprehensive revenue data to track revenue against their target budget. These reports include:

• Year-on-Year Reports: These reports show how your revenue has changed over time so you can see if you’re on track to meet your goals.
• Actual vs. Budget Reports: These reports compare your actual revenue to your budget so you can see where you’re over or underperforming.

These reports can help you make informed decisions about your business and ensure that you’re on track to reach your revenue goals.

Gray Room/s & TrevPAR Reporting

Feature: Revenue reports from selling additional spaces and services.

We introduced revenue reports to our unique Gray Rooms feature as hybrid hospitality gains popularity and hotels seek to generate revenue from sources other than rooms. Gray Rooms allows hoteliers to sell unused spaces and facilities for free, but there is a monthly invoice limit.

We’ve also introduced TrevPAR reports so hoteliers can view revenue generated from various sources such as the bar, restaurant, parking, pools, spas, minibar, massages, exercise classes, gym, retail sales, and excursion bookings. Learn more about calculating TrevPAR for your hotel. 

5. Departure

Online Self Check-Out

As a hotelier, you can make the check-out process for your guests stress-free by sending them an online check-out request link. By doing this, your guests can settle any outstanding payments online through a secure payment portal without having to visit the front desk, which can be time-consuming and cause unnecessary delays.

Enhancing the User Experience 

For the past two years, RoomRaccoon has made the user experience a top priority. Our first major upgrade was to enhance the various module screens in the system, including Reservations, Booking Engine, Reports, and Payments. The upgrade ensured easier and quicker navigation, creating a seamless and enjoyable experience for all users.

What’s next? 

Tymen Van Dyl, CEO and Founder of RoomRaccoon remarked: “Our product team is currently revamping the user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) as part of an ongoing project, with the goal of improving the overall user experience. At the same time, we are carefully reconstructing the underlying codebase to create the world’s best all-in-one hotel management system.”

A Sneak Peek Into RoomRaccoon’s Product Roadmap 24’

We’re revving up to turbocharge your operations with a thrilling lineup of cutting-edge features, enhancements, and seamless integrations coming your way in 2024.

1. Child Policy Functionalities for Enhanced Booking Management

This functionality will enable you to create multiple child policies, specifying details such as city taxes and surcharge amounts, and assign these policies to specific room categories. You will also be able to create scheduled policies to accommodate seasonal changes in surcharges and city taxes. With the introduction of the child policy, guests can book seamlessly through an improved booking engine with brand-new search criteria, accounting for adults and children.

2. Moving towards an Accrual-Based Accounting Methodology

We’re working towards integrating accrual-based accounting as an addition to the RoomRaccoon system. By integrating accrual-based accounting methods, you can precisely account for revenue on the day it is generated rather than the day it is invoiced.

 In 2023, we enhanced the management of add-ons in the system, enabling you to assign add-ons to specific days and rooms.

 Early next year, you will be able to close off revenue for a specific day up to a specific date. This guarantees that the financial data for the reservation is up to date and is set in stone, preventing any additional revenue from being added or past revenue figures from being altered. This approach enhances the clarity of daily financial reporting, a crucial aspect for hoteliers in understanding revenue distribution over multiple days.

3. Mid-Stay Move

Next year, you will have the flexibility to seamlessly transition guests to different rooms during their stay, whether due to maintenance needs or a desired room upgrade. You will be able to split the reservation across different rooms.

About RoomRaccoon

RoomRaccoon empowers independent hoteliers with an integrated platform to maximize revenue, control operations, and delight guests through process automation. 

The core product combines a hotel-first PMS, channel manager, booking engine, and a wide range of modules and upgrades for payments, housekeeping, reporting, and digital guest services. All of these features are seamlessly integrated, allowing hoteliers to manage their entire operation from a single platform. Discover more, and book your demo today!

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