If you have recently launched a website with a booking engine, things might be working fine. However, you may find that you can’t "easily" add a date-picker to your homepage that connects to Mews, or optimize it for higher conversions.
Rather than forcing visitors to open a separate page or restart the booking process every time they click "Book Now," you want them to pick their dates directly on your site.
And the great news is: yes, you can definitely do this.
The Booking Widget Integration Method
Yes, you can display the Mews Booking Engine directly on your hotel's landing page using the Booking Engine Widget mode. You don't even need to use the API. While it isn't always straightforward if you aren't familiar with development, it is completely doable using Mews and your website builder.
(Curious to know how it works with Wix or Webflow? Read my use case articles.)
Visual Layout Option: A Calendar Date Picker
You can add a calendar date-picker to your homepage that looks just like this one:
It is visually integrated with your brand’s style and connected to Mews for a customized checkout. Keep in mind that it can look any way we want to, and we’ll make sure it fits perfectly with your brand and your website.
Optimize Your Booking Flow (and Increase Direct Bookings)
The biggest advantage of a customized layout is the improvement to your guest's booking journey and your conversion rate. Beyond allowing visitors to book without leaving the page, you can:
- Pre-fill Details: Add a custom date-picker on your home page to launch MEWs with dates, and number of guests pre-filled.
- Deep-Link to Rooms: Add a custom date-picker on your rooms pages to launch MEWs on the specific room step directly.
- Localization: If your site is translated, you can make sure your MEWs booking engine opens with the right language or the right currency.
- Auto-Apply Promo Codes: You can also make sure that your MEWs booking engine opens with a specific promo code added to directly change the price for some visitors.
- Filtered Results: You can also have a pet-friendly rooms listing, and make sure only these rooms open when visitors try to book.
Displaying your MEWs booking engine visually on your website is important, because it allows MEWs to interact with your website elements, and open accordingly.
Why Customize Your Website and PMS Integration?
All hoteliers know that profit margins are often sacrificed to commission fees from OTAs.
You can keep profit margins high, and offer better prices to your guests instead of giving away your revenue to third parties by investing in your own booking channel.
And this is it: your website is your own booking channel.
Online attention spans are shrinking, and visitors are expecting quick online experiences. Your website needs to be trustworthy and optimized for conversions, but it can also be very authentic to your brand (and appeal to the right guests).
This has a direct impact on your direct bookings.
For example, one of my client’s guests shared that she booked through the website, because it felt like the most professional/nice looking one in the area, and she really enjoyed the experience.
Another client’s website conversion rate really improved when the booking engine was integrated to open on rooms specifically, without having to open a new URL and start the booking experience from scratch!
Integrating your booking engine will help you create a competitive, authentic, and direct booking experience on your website.
Tips to use your website as a direct-booking chanel:
- How to appear in Google Searches as soon as your website goes live
- How to connect your PMS to your website for direct bookings
- Integrating MEWs to a Wix Website for a Custom Booking Experience (Case Study)
Do you need help setting it up on your website? I’d love to help :)
Reach out and book a free call here so I can understand better where you’re at.