Accommodation Booking Systems: Compared

A Guide to Booking Systems

Choosing the right booking system for your glamping site is an important decision, but due to the large number of providers available, this decision can quickly become overwhelming. International Glamping Business Social Media Editor Annie Hilton has reached out to a number of booking system providers to highlight the best options out there, providing the information you need to make an informed decision on who is right for you and your glamping site.

GEMAPARK

netguides.co.uk/gemapark

What makes your system unique?

GemaPark is designed around making life easier for you, your staff and your customers. It provides comprehensive functionality to manage bookings and accommodation in a way that is intuitive and a pleasure to use. Our development is based around smoothing out the creases, improving connectivity and making data easier to interpret, so you, your staff and your customers can get the most out of your business.

What are the main advantages to glamping sites using your system?

GemaPark provides an easy process for taking and managing bookings that gives you the ability to be consistent. This is key in becoming great. As you work on continually improving your offering you know it will be rolled out to all your customers by the system. From an easy online booking experience to great communications and an informed warm welcome, your customers will love it.

Is your system more suitable for larger or smaller sites?

Our system is very scalable and suitable for all sizes. We believe you should be able to start as you mean to go on and, as you grow, you shouldn’t lose site of the keenness to please you had when you started.

What geographical markets do you cover?

GemaPark manages parks in the UK and Europe.

Would there be a discount for several sites under the same company?

Our pricing is simply based on the number of accommodation units managed by the company, regardless of how many parks. There are discounts as the number of units increases.

How available is your customer service?

Our phones are manned and answered by people based in the UK, usually within 3 rings. We also offer 24/7 support.

How long are you tied into the contract?

Our contracts are a minimum of 6 months to start and then a rolling month contract.

How do you compare price wise to others on the market?

We are competitively priced.

CLOUDBEDS

cloudbeds.com

What makes your system unique?

The Cloudbeds Hospitality Platform was created to democratize access to modern, innovative hospitality software to every hotelier or host regardless of the size, property type or location. It seamlessly combines tools for operations, revenue management, guest experience, and marketing with a marketplace of thirdparty integrations to help independent hoteliers and hosts grow revenue, streamline operations, and deliver memorable guest experiences.

With Cloudbeds, glamping businesses can run their entire reservations, distribution, and marketing strategy through a single platform. A drag-and-drop reservations calendar makes managing guests and checkins and checkouts simple and easy. With a seamlessly integrated channel manager, properties can instantly send and sync rates and availability with hundreds of booking channels, including Airbnb, Booking.com, and more — no more overbookings.

Using Cloudbeds Websites and Booking Engine, glamping businesses can capture more direct bookings and reduce reliance on OTAs through beautifully designed, mobilefriendly websites. And with Cloudbeds Payments, accept contactless credit card and mobile payments securely and sync them automatically with your guest reservation — save your staff time and reduce your risk of fraud and chargebacks.

The Cloudbeds Marketplace also offers hundreds of apps to streamline operations and enhance the guest experience, including keyless entry, self check-in, and mobile concierge.

Recognised by the hospitality industry at the 2021 HotelTechAwards for Best Booking Engine and again in 2022 claiming the Best Hotel Management Software award, Cloudbeds Hospitality Platform is completely cloud-based (no installation required), easy-to-learn and easy-to-use (saves your staff time), and helps you to grow your business and delight your guests.

What are the main advantages to glamping sites using your system?

Say goodbye to double bookings and manage your inventory across all channels in real-time. Cloudbeds’ built-in channel manager gives you a centralized place to manage your inventory on Airbnb, Booking. com, Expedia, plus specialized listing sites. Rates and reservations sync instantly across your system and all channels, so you never have to worry about overbookings.

Drive 20% more direct bookings. With Cloudbeds, you can turn your website into your top-performing booking channel—with no added commissions—using a mobilefriendly, customizable booking engine.

Integrated property management software with flexible inventory. With just a few clicks, you have the flexibility to maximize your revenue by selling the same space as either a private room or a dorm (per bed). Our online booking engine supports all inventory types and configurations.

Is your system more suitable for larger or smaller sites?

Cloudbeds Hospitality Platform is suitable for glamping sites of all sizes, including single sites and brands with multiple locations across multiple cities.

What geographical markets do you cover?

Cloudbeds is available in all geographies across the world with 24/7 support. The platform is available in English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Italian, and Thai.

Would there be a discount for several sites under the same company?

Pricing varies depending on a number of factors, including property size and number of rooms. For more information, contact a sales representative.

How available is your customer service?

Our customer support team is located across 40+ countries and offers support 24/7.

How long are you tied into the contract?

There is no contract minimum, though we are able to offer discounts for annual pricing.

How do you compare price wise to others on the market?

Pricing is competitive with other similar solutions on the market.

ANYTIME BOOKING

anytimebooking.co.uk

What makes your system unique?

Anytime Booking is an excellent option as a booking management system for your glamping site - but with us, you are not only buying into the tech, you are buying into the people here that support you. We are well known for our flexible software, packed with the right features to support the complexities of outdoor hospitality. But we are equally as known for our outstanding service.

We deeply understand the difference between a business migrating from another system and a business onboarding to us from a paperdiary or spreadsheet for the first time. Our tailored approach to discovery, training and ongoing after-care for each client is one of our unique differentiators from other softwares in the market.

We also service multiple accommodation types in outdoor holidays. Camping, glamping, holiday parks, motorhome/ campervan hire, and holiday let agencies all use our system. This gives ultimate flexibility to businesses who want to diversify their model or who already have more than one accommodation type.

What are the main advantages to glamping sites using your system?

Enjoy expertise and outstanding care from us as you go about managing your business.

Join a user community with other likeminded businesses, many of them awardwinning. Share ideas in our forum, join webinars and online huddles, access guides and talk to our team.

Use feature-rich software designed specifically for the glamping sector; you’ll want for nothing. n It’s super accessible - being a cloud-based system, all you need is a device with an internet connection.

Give instant bookability through your website so your guests get the best impression of you and experience from the start.

Create more revenue by selling extras such as welcome hampers, champagne, fire-pits, logs and activities. Really make the booking process feel as high level as your glamping experience itself.

For more visibility and bookings, utilise connections to relevant sales channels for your market, like Canopy & Stars, Cool Camping, Campsites.co.uk, Pitch Up, Airbnb, Holidu and Booking.com.

You can use our simple web builder to create a new, beautiful, affordable website for your glamping business, at the same time as you come onboard to the booking software.

Is your system more suitable for larger or smaller sites?

We welcome businesses of all sizes into the Anytime community. We make sure right at the beginning that we are a good fit and that expectations of the business and the guest will be met. What geographical markets do you cover? We predominantly service the UK, but we do have some clients in the Far East and Europe.

Would there be a discount for several sites under the same company?

Yes. We are happy to have those conversations and to look at how we can work together to make resources go further or spread costs.

How available is your customer service?

The office hours are 9-5, Monday to Friday, for general support but we will answer emails, in-app or by phone outside of these times if the query is time-sensitive or urgent.

Our first-time response to client queries is usually within a few minutes and we work hard for fast resolutions. We have invested heavily in the communication tools we use internally so we can offer the very best in client care.

How long are you tied into the contract?

When you come onboard with Anytime Booking, we ask you to sign up to a 12 month contract, with a rolling 3 month notice period after that.

How do you compare price wise to others on the market?

We don’t like to compare. When it comes to pricing, we set our own standard and price fairly for our own unique software and for our style of service.

Our pricing depends on the infrastructure of the site, the support you’ll need and number of units we’ll be servicing – and it can scale up or down. There will be more - and less - expensive options out there, and if price is your main driver then we might not be the system for you. If you’re looking for an expert, hands-on team who become a natural extension of your business, together with a flexible, powerful and easy-to-use software to match, please come and talk to us. We’d be delighted to welcome you into our user community.

BEDFUL

bedful.com

What makes your system unique?

Bedful is extremely easy to use, but also very powerful and flexible. For example, our flexible pricing allows for every kind of rates structure and we also integrate handy tools like upselling extras, taking security deposits and automating messages such as a friendly ‘welcome’ or ‘goodbye’ message to guests. We also get great feedback about our support team! We have a team of eight amazing Customer Happiness specialists based in Birmingham who are always happy to help with any issues or questions.

What are the main advantages to glamping sites using your system?

The main advantage of using Bedful is the time saving that glamping hosts will enjoy. Bedful automates lots of manual tasks and reduces admin, allowing hosts to concentrate on more important things like marketing, welcoming guests personally – or cleaning the showers! It’s a busy life being a glamping host so using Bedful to eliminate availability enquiries, repetitive emails, balance payments, security deposits, upselling extras and lots more is like having an extra member of staff or two on the team!

Is your system more suitable for larger or smaller sites?

We have both large and small sites using Bedful – our largest hosts have over 200 units, but we have plenty of hosts that only have one treehouse or cabin. The system works equally well for both types of hosts.

What geographical markets do you cover?

We are focused mainly on the UK, although we do have a growing number of sites elsewhere using Bedful too. We support transactions in Euros and US dollars as well as GB£, so that has attracted glamping hosts from outside the UK.

Would there be a discount for several sites under the same company?

Yes, we do offer a discount to companies with multiple sites as they tend to require less support overall. We also offer an ‘agency’ package for those hosts, so they can view a global dashboard showing metrics from all their sites, as well as a dashboard for each individual site. They can also choose to allow customers to search across all their locations, or just each individual location – there’s a huge amount of flexibility with the agency package so Bedful suits multi-site hosts very well.

How available is your customer service?

Our UK Customer Service team, based in Birmingham, is available Monday-Saturday from 8am to 6pm.

How long are you tied into the contract?

A Bedful subscription lasts for a year.

How do you compare price wise to others on the market?

Our pricing is very competitive, with packages starting from just £21 per month plus VAT. Pricing is on a sliding scale depending on how many glamping units are on the system, and there is a handy pricing calculator at bedful.com. There is no initial set up fee either, so as a result, our pricing compares well with other booking systems.