How to improve your liquidity through vouchers

The main problem hoteliers are currently facing is the maintenance of liquidity, because there is not only a lack of incoming new reservations, but also existing bookings are being canceled. Supporting you through these particularly difficult times is our priority and that’s why we want to share some helpful new functionalities that Profitroom Suite offers in times of the pandemic.

A way to maintain liquidity

At this point it is crucial to prevent loss of advance payments. Every hotelier has expenses that he currently can’t limit. However, you can avoid losing payments already received. Unfortunately, at this moment, only a few guests decide to change their reservations while most still prefer to cancel them entirely. This results from an uncertainty of when it will be possible to travel again.

Towards the early May bank holiday you should expect to see further cancellations. The guests who have not canceled their stay yet will probably do so sooner or later. It is now desirable to replace some of these cancellations with vouchers and the option of a postponed visit of your facility.

Why should cancellations be converted into vouchers?

Maintaining a reservation is primarily an advantage for the hotel, which doesn’t reimburse the advance payment to the customers, but keeps the credit on its account. 

Direct reservations (by phone or through the website) are particularly important. They have the lowest distribution costs because they have a low commission compared to reservations through OTAs and are often made by guests who already are familiar with your facility.

The generation of a voucher facilitates an easy and pleasant future booking process for the guest. He solely must provide the voucher number on the website when booking (feature available soon!) or when contacting the front desk.

How it works in Profitroom Suite 

You can convert a cancellation into a voucher using Profitroom Suite in two ways:

1. The receptionist can create the voucher manually if he cancels the reservation by phone/email.
2. The guest can create the voucher himself if he cancels the booking via the Profitroom Booking Engine!

You no longer have to invest in voucher software because everything is done transparently via Profitroom Suite.

The voucher is automatically issued for the amount of the advance payment. In case of a price increase, the guest pays the difference upon arrival at the hotel, meaning both you and your guest don't have to worry about changing the price of the stay.

An additional advantage of this functionality is the validity of one year from the date of the first booking, meaning that a guest who booked an Easter holiday stay can book the same option for next year. The hotel distributes its vouchers evenly over time and will offer space for new reservations in the coming months.

Make sure that you activate the option for the voucher!

You will decide best what strategy to pursue for your hotel. However, we strongly recommend that you activate the function of guests creating their own vouchers instead of canceling their stay. Here's how to do it:

Go to Settings → Reservation system → Advanced → Change reservations and move the slider to the right. Decide whether you want to give this option time limits or whether you want to set it without restrictions until your facility stabilizes again in daily operations.

In the MODIFICATION section, you can define your own copy which will be shown to guests in order to encourage them to modify and not cancel. If you don't provide your own copy, a standard predefined copy will be displayed.

Remember: this option allows guests to issue coupons for all reservations canceled within the time period you choose, including non-refundable reservations. However, this is the right approach given the exceptional circumstances and the profits you can make by not losing advance payments.

Generating a voucher is possible via the cancellation / change view of the booking, which the guest sees when he tries to cancel the email from Profitroom’s Booking Engine. After clicking on the ‘Change booking’ button, the guest sees the option to convert the cancellation into a voucher.

The voucher will look like this:

Vouchers for bookings will soon be available via the Profitroom Booking Engine. This function will be added before the upcoming domestic booking boom! This makes managing future reservations even easier.

Keep in mind that you can still convert the cancellation into a voucher during a manual cancellation.

To cancel a reservation and automatically generate a voucher for it, go to the reservation list and select the reservation you want to cancel.

In the view above, click the ‘Cancellation’ button and then select the type of cancellation from the dropdown list ‘full refund of the deposit by the hotel in the form of a voucher’.

If you have any questions about the creation of vouchers, please contact our finance department, which is available for you daily between 9:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. via our live- chat.

If you are not yet one of our customers and would like to use the voucher option, please contact us!
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