Booking Engine overview

Every reservation that comes through your own website instead of an OTA is commission you keep. The HotelBee Booking Engine is the page where that happens — your branded direct-booking site, hosted at your subdomain, drawing on the same inventory and rates you already manage in the PMS. This article covers what's in the box, how it relates to the Guest Portal and your marketing site, and how to decide between embedding it and linking to it.

Where it lives

Your booking engine URL is https://your-subdomain.hotelbee.io/booking. The subdomain is the one you use to log into HotelBee — if you log in at acmehotel.hotelbee.io, your booking engine is at acmehotel.hotelbee.io/booking. You'll find the link, with a copy button and a Preview button, at the top of Settings → Booking Engine.

What's actually in there

The settings page has ten tabs grouped into two areas — five for the booking engine itself and five for the broader Guest Portal:

Booking engine tabs

• Appearance — header color, button color, body background, font family (16 options including Inter, Playfair, Georgia), border radius, hotel logo, hero background image. There's a live Preview button so you can see changes before saving.
• Contact & Footer — public contact email and phone shown to guests during checkout, an About Us blurb, and the footer text and toggle.
• Language — default language, enabled languages, and whether to show flags in the language switcher.
• Payment Methods — pick which of your active payment methods (cash, card, or bank only) appear at checkout.
• Best Price Guarantee — pick which OTA channels (from those connected via Channex) appear in the price-comparison badge. Empty selection means "all connected channels".

Guest portal tabs

The Guest Portal is the post-booking experience — the page guests land on with their confirmation link. It shares branding with the booking engine but has its own content tabs:

• Guest Portal Information — Wi-Fi, parking, breakfast hours, etc. Whatever guests usually phone the front desk to ask.
• Things To Do — local recommendations: restaurants, attractions, beaches. Earns goodwill and saves the front desk time.
• Services — extras the guest can pre-purchase or request from the portal (airport transfer, late checkout, spa, etc.).
• Booking Engine Sales Blocks — date-ranged, per-roomtype stop-sell. Use when the channel manager rates calendar isn't enough — e.g., a maintenance week affecting all room types.
• Widget Code Generator — generates the embed code (search-banner script tag or full-flow iframe) you paste into your marketing site.

Linking vs embedding — which to pick

If your marketing website is a one-pager or a basic CMS site, you have two paths to choose from:

Just link to the booking page

Easiest setup — point your "Book Now" buttons at https://your-subdomain.hotelbee.io/booking and you're done. Guests are taken to the full booking engine, which already carries your branding because of the Appearance settings. Recommended when you don't want to touch your marketing site's HTML.

Embed the Search Banner widget

Adds a date-and-guest picker directly to your homepage. The user picks dates inline, clicks Search, and the booking flow opens in a new tab. The widget is a single <script> tag with data-* attributes for language, currency, button color, layout (horizontal or vertical), and background. Generated for you in the Widget Code Generator tab.

Embed the Full Booking iframe

The whole booking flow — room selection, guest details, payment — runs inside an iframe on your page. Guests never leave your domain. Use this when conversion matters and you want your /book or /reservations page to feel native to the rest of the site.

How it relates to the rest of HotelBee

• Rates & inventory come straight from the PMS — the same rate plans, restrictions, and availability you set for OTA channels via the channel manager. There is no separate "booking engine inventory".
• Payment methods come from Settings → Payment Methods. Only the active ones with cash/card/bank base types are eligible.
• Promo codes are managed in Backoffice → Promo Codes (there's also a quick link in Booking Engine settings). Guests apply them in the booking flow.
• Automatic discounts are managed under Backoffice → Discounts and apply when conditions are met — minimum nights, minimum amount, or repeat-booking thresholds — without the guest needing a code.
• OTA price comparison in the Best Price Guarantee badge requires Channex to be connected so the booking engine can read live OTA prices for the dates a guest is shopping.
• Reservations booked through the engine appear in the Reservations Calendar instantly with source "Booking Engine" and the OTA channel field empty.

Where to go next

• How to set up your booking engine — the step-by-step from blank to first reservation.
• Promo codes and discounts on the booking engine — how to run an early-bird or returning-guest offer.
• Testing the booking engine end to end — make sure the first real guest doesn't hit a surprise.