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Serviced accommodation operators continue to operate within a rapidly evolving industry, with traveller trends still recovering from the pandemic and shifting demographic demands resulting in a new set of demands from guests. Business travel continues to increase year on year with younger generations extending their corporate trips for leisure.
One factor that remains constant in the space is competition, with operators continuing to rank the amount of competition as their biggest challenge. Against this backdrop of both increased opportunity and increased competition it’s crucial that operators position themselves for discovery from potential guests.
While Online Travel Agents (OTAs) continue to capture the attention of nearly 80% of travelers before they finalise a booking, a significant portion of guests, particularly older demographics and corporate clients, still value the benefits of booking directly through an operator’s website.
To maximise revenue and ensure high occupancy in 2025, operators must adopt a smart, dual-channel strategy. This involves leveraging a powerful serviced accommodation channel manager alongside a branded direct booking engine with a suite of integrated tools.
The Indispensable Role of Serviced Accomodation Channel Managers
A channel manager for serviced accommodation providers is a central hub for connecting pricing and availability to a diverse range of online travel agents (OTAs) and other distribution channels. While a standard channel manager broadens your reach, an exceptional one does much more, automatically pushing optimised rates and providing real-time analytics to boost performance.
Here’s how a fully optimised channel manager for serviced apartments can help operators:
Expanded Reach with Popular & Specialist Channels
Your channel manager ensures your properties are visible on major OTAs like Booking.com, Expedia, Airbnb, and Agoda, benefiting directly from their immense marketing budgets, user experience investments and considerable website traffic.
Beyond the big players, an exceptional channel manager also connects you to specialist platforms. This allows you to target specific customer types, such as corporate housing specialists like Silverdoor, long-stay experts like Rightmove, or even niche coliving channels like Young Global Living and Nomad Stays, attracting your ideal guest for each property.
Optimised Listings for Targeted Audiences
To truly maximise bookings, your channel manager should enable you to tailor listings for different channels and guest types. For example, you can promote long-stay Build-to-Rent (BTR) units with detailed floor plans and 360° videos, while short-term units might highlight community events or wellness services. This targeted approach helps you cultivate a specific community and increase occupancy within individual buildings.
Maximising Profit with Your Internal Booking Engine
While OTAs are crucial for visibility, direct bookings through your own website's internal booking engine are vital for maximising profit margins. Large OTAs can charge over 15-20% commission fees, whereas direct bookings allow you to retain more of the total booking value (or reduce your costs to increase onsite conversion rates).
Here’s why a robust internal booking engine is a crucial tool that should complement channel managers as part of the best serviced apartment software:
- Reduce Commission Costs & Increase Revenue: By encouraging direct bookings, you significantly cut down on commission fees, directly boosting your profit margins. You can even use these savings to offer more competitive prices, enticing guests who initially discover your property on an OTA to book directly instead.
- Seamless Guest Experience: Many travelers use OTAs to locate available units but prefer to book directly for a more personal connection or better prices. Your internal booking engine should provide a slick quote portal, respond to queries quickly, and send personalised quotes. A branded, easy-to-use booking portal that offers flexible payment terms, like "pay later" for corporate clients, can capture guests without the commission fee.
- Build Direct Loyalty & Capture Data: Direct bookings allow you to capture valuable first-party data, crucial for remarketing and building lasting guest relationships. Implement loyalty programs, offering upgrades or special perks to frequent travelers, strengthening brand loyalty and encouraging repeat direct bookings.
- Showcase Your Property: Your direct booking software is the perfect platform to fully showcase your units with multiple photos, carousels, floor plans, 360° videos, and details about amenities and the local area. You can also embed a customised, on-brand booking portal directly into your website and optimise it for search engines using keywords and metadata to maximise exposure.
The Core of Efficiency: Your PMS Channel Manager and Integrations
Managing a mixed mode booking strategy between OTAs and direct enquiries can be complicated, this is why a seamless integration of a channel manager and internal booking engine with a comprehensive Property Management System (PMS) is crucial.
Synchronised Operations for Flawless Management
When your channel manager and PMS are synchronised, property managers can view all booking and listing details in real-time, pushing new rates or unit photos to multiple sites with just a few clicks.
When a booking is made on one site, it's automatically logged in your PMS, updating availability across all other channels. This synchronicity frees up managers' time, minimises human errors, eliminates double-bookings, and significantly increases your chances of maximum occupancy.
Automated Processes and Workflows
An integrated channel manager as part of your PMS goes further than just updating availability. It’s the cornerstone of a host of automated processes like setting housekeeping activities for booked units, sending automated emails with key information to guests, and streamlining payment collection based on booking terms. This automation enhances operational efficiency and guest experience.
Dynamic Pricing for Optimised Revenue
The best channel manager for serviced apartments leverages dynamic pricing tools that analyse your booking data (lead-time, seasonal popularity, guest preferences) and competitor rates in real-time. These tools automatically push optimised rates to all your channels daily, ensuring you always get the most value for your units. Dynamic pricing also helps boost occupancy by automatically offering reduced rates or shorter minimum stays for "in-between" bookings, minimising vacancy gaps.
Data-Driven Insights for Strategic Growth
An exceptional channel manager collects in-depth analytics on channel performance, identifying which listings resonate with different customer types, which properties generate the most revenue and which OTAs are most profitable once their commission is taken into account. This data allows you to optimise your marketing spend, launch targeted special offers, or increase paid advertising on channels that yield the most guest bookings.
Comprehensive Integrations for a Unified Tech Stack
As well as hoisting your channel manager and internal booking engine, a leading PMS acts as a central system, simplifying your tech stack by seamlessly integrating with various services operators need to run their business. Beyond core channel management, this includes:
- Access Control: For smart lock management and seamless guest entry.
- Finance Systems: For managing accounting, invoicing, cash flow, and taxes.
- Guest Experience Tools: To improve check-in/out, provide in-stay information, and upsell services.
- Marketing & CRM: For managing customer relationships and automating marketing campaigns.
- Payment Platforms: For fast and secure payment collection.
- Revenue Management: Beyond dynamic pricing, for advanced decision intelligence and business analytics.
- Document e-sign: For streamlined digital paperwork.
Tailoring Your Strategy for Diverse Guests and Stays
A robust dual-channel booking strategy, powered by your PMS and channel manager, allows you to customise the booking experience for varied traveler segments and stay lengths.
As the largest segment for serviced apartments, corporate guests often prioritise loyalty programs, flexible payment options, and reliability. Leverage OTAs specialising in corporate travel like SilverDoor to connect with this market, while your direct booking engine offers "book now, pay later", flexible cancellation policies and loyalty programs based on previous stays.
For extended stays (1-3 months or even 90+ days), OTAs can generate initial awareness, but your direct booking channels are ideal for providing exclusive discounts and customised packages.
Your PMS should automatically adjust rates and amenities for these longer bookings, and your direct booking portal can streamline guest verification processes while avoiding OTA fees.
Operators are increasingly adopting adaptable models, accommodating longer stays in quieter months and shifting to short-term rentals during peak seasons to maximise occupancy and profits. Having a PMS that can easily shift between short, extended and long stay bookings helps offer this adaptability at scale, without a huge change in core operations.
A Competitive Edge
In an increasingly competitive market, operators can no longer solely rely on OTAs for bookings, especially with thin margins being impacted further by OTA commission costs.
By embracing an all-in-one PMS that integrates a powerful serviced accommodation channel manager with a branded white label direct booking engine - as well as an open API to connect to external services - operators can manage complex multi-channel strategies, drive direct bookings, streamline operations, and deliver a tailored guest experience that maximises profitability.
Ready to elevate your serviced apartment business? Check out our Ultimate Guide to Serviced Apartment Property Management Software to learn more about how a comprehensive PMS can transform your operations and book a demo to understand how res:harmonics PMS can help manage your OTA listings while complementing your channel manager with a direct booking engine.
