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The ABCs of SEO for hotels

At Simplotel we have built websites for over 2,000 hotels, and every single time we have been asked about how we drive traffic to a website. We have been asked by those who are usually suspicious of SEO because they paid for such services in past and may or may not have seen results. And we have been asked by our customers who see a 3x plus growth in their website traffic after coming to our platform – as to how we do it. While SEO can be a deep subject, today we will attempt to outline how one must think about SEO in this post.

At a high level SEO depends on three things –

Technology and layout of the website
The content on the website
Things happening outside your website

Technology and layout of the website

In order to determine the relevance of a website for a search term (also known as a keyword) search engines have a piece of software called a Bot (derived from the word Robot) that crawls (think of it as reads) content on your website. The Bot then stores the keywords that a website is most relevant for. This is known as indexing of a website.

Unlike users, bots see the code of the website and not what users see on a website (you can view the code of most websites by right clicking on a webpage and selecting view page source). The easier this code is for the search engines to understand, the better chance you have of conveying your content to the search engines and making sure that your content gets indexed correctly. Here again there are hundreds of things that matter. These include the load time of a website, the structure of website code, mobile friendliness, proper tags and sitemaps. Detailing these is a topic for a future blog.

The layout of your website also plays an important role in search engine optimization. Clean and simple navigation, easily readable content – they all add up towards SEO friendliness.
To get these things right a website must be built for SEO from the ground up – retrofitting these things can often mean redoing the website. The good news is that Simplotel, out of the box, takes care of all this for your hotel website.

The content on your website

Now that we have gotten the technical aspects covered, the next most obvious thing about SEO is the content of the website. If your website’s content is about ice cream cones then your site will be indexed for ice cream cone searches and not for hotels. If your content is about a luxury hotel, then you won’t be indexed for budget hotels and consequently it is unlikely that you will show up for searches related to budget hotels.

Content also comes in many shapes. It includes the text on the website, the images that you put, the links you provide and the various tags (page titles page descriptions etc.). Each one of these have a significance and how and where you place them also matters. Content that is higher up on a page matters more than the content that is below. On things like page titles, the content that is to the left matters more than the content that is to the right. How you structure your content with various Headers (much like a word document) matters. How you name your images, how you name the links – they all matter.

All content on your website should be original content – copying of content from another website hurts your traffic – as the search engines and users skip past you believing you have nothing new to say. Adding fresh and relevant content has also shown to impact the SEO of a website.

There is also data about your hotel (meta data) that you can provide on your website, it is not visible to your customers but tells the bots the location, name, etc. of your hotel. Once again, Simplotel does this out of the box for your site. Our experts write the content for your hotel website so that it is all set up well. This is another reason why our customers see a 3x plus growth in traffic.

Things happening outside your website

After the technology and the content on the website, there are things that happen outside your website that impact search engine optimization. These include your guest reviews, your listing on Google Maps and local listing sites, your mention in travel blogs, etc. – they all matter. Here are some suggestions,

Verify and own your Google My Business (GMB) page and make sure that the map marker is accurate.
Ensure that your hotel’s name, address and contact info is exactly the same on all online channels – your social media pages, local listings and classified listings.
Get good reviews by taking care of customers and encouraging customers to write a glowing review. Also, respond to your reviews on various review channels time to time.

There are few silver bullets in SEO – so you must skin it with a thousand paper cuts. Please let us know your comments, questions and feedback at hello@simplotel.com.

Home > Blogs > One Trip, Many Stops: How Itinerary Booking is the Schengen Visa of Hotel Reservations

One Trip, Many Stops: How Itinerary Booking is the Schengen Visa of Hotel Reservations

Imagine planning a multi-city trip; maybe exploring the cultural gems of Paris, Rome, and Barcelona, or hopping between islands in Thailand. Normally, booking each stay separately can be time-consuming and fragmented.
Now, picture doing this in one seamless process with multiple stays, all within the same hotel chain. That’s exactly what Simplotel’s Itinerary Booking feature offers.
Whether you’re touring Europe, Asia, or any region, the experience becomes smooth, efficient, and unified just like moving through different destinations with one simple plan.

Let’s break it down.

What is Itinerary Booking?

The Itinerary Booking feature allows travelers to book multiple hotels from the same chain across different locations all in a single transaction. Think of it as a bundled reservation system that works best for multi-destination travel within a state or region.

For example: planning a trip to Kerala? Instead of booking Munnar, Alleppey, and Kochi separately, you can do it all together if the hotels belong to the same chain.

This mirrors how tourists often describe their journey. “We visited Kerala” is far more common than “we stayed in these three cities.” This user mindset inspired the creation of this powerful booking flow.

Why Itinerary Booking Matters (and How It Helps)

Let’s look at the benefits for both guests and hotels.

For Guests:

Fewer clicks, less confusion: One booking journey, multiple stays. Just like entering Europe through Paris and leaving via Rome, no need to apply separately for each stop.
Flexible changes: Need to cancel Kochi but keep Munnar and Alleppey? Go for it each stay is editable on its own (based on hotel policies).
Customized experience: Choose different room types, guest counts, or add-ons per property. Your Kochi stay can have a sea view with breakfast, while Munnar can be a basic room without extras.

For Hotels:

Higher occupancy across properties: Hotels can offer special packages or promotional offers to attract more bookings.
More control over branding and pricing: Since all bookings stay within the chain, it's easier to manage room availability and enhance the guest experience.
Increased visibility and revenue: More touchpoints with the same guest = more opportunities for upselling and loyalty.

Booking Flow: As Smooth as European Borders

Here’s how a guest would actually use Itinerary Booking:

Step 1: Start Booking
From the Search Page, the guest selects a hotel and sees the option to “Add Another Property.” This initiates the itinerary flow.

Step 2: Add Properties
Just like planning your next European stop, guests can add hotels in different cities but onlywithin the same hotel chain.

Step 3: Manage Dates Smartly

Thecheck-in date for each subsequent hotel defaults to the previous hotel’s check-out date.
Overlapping dates? Not allowed.
Sold-out or invalid dates? Marked clearly.

Step 4: Configure Per Hotel
Guests can:

Choose different rooms or rate plans for each hotel.
Select add-ons like breakfast, spa access, or airport pickup - per hotel.
Update guest counts for each leg of the trip.

Step 5: Apply Promo Codes & Review
Promo codes are applied per property, not across multiple hotels. Guests can enter the code in the first step of booking and review a full summary of each property’s booking, costs, and inclusions before proceeding.

Flexibility Post-Booking

Just like being able to extend your stay in one country while shortening another on a Euro trip, itinerary bookings allow flexibility too:

Cancel or edit individual hotels, without affecting the whole itinerary (if allowed by the hotel).
Cannot add new properties post-payment you’d need to make a new booking.
Cancel with Confidence: Refunds and penalties apply per property, giving guests flexibility and hotels more control.

Hotels may also initiate changes or cancellations, and guests will be notified accordingly.

For Hotels: Easy to Manage, Powerful to Scale

From the backend, here’s how the feature works for hotel chains:

Admin Control:

Chains enable or disable the itinerary feature via the Admin Panel.
They choose which properties participate.

Financials:

All payments and refunds are managed centrally by the parent hotel or chain.
Auto-Refunds Made Easy: Supported on select payment gateways with no extra cost.
Consistent Pricing & Taxes: Rules are applied per property, ensuring clarity and transparency for guests.

Booking Visibility:

The parent hotel sees all bookings under each itinerary.
Individual hotels see only their specific bookings but all are tagged with the Itinerary ID for easy tracking.

The Takeaway

Just like a Schengen Visa makes traveling across Europe easy and efficient, Simplotel’s Itinerary Booking streamlines multi-location stays into a single, smooth experience for guests and hotel chains.

For travelers, it reduces friction and increases flexibility. For hotels, it creates an opportunity to maximize revenue, simplify operations, and deliver consistent guest experiences across locations.

As travel patterns evolve beyond single-city stays, tools like this are no longer a luxury; they're essential.

So whether you're mapping a journey across God’s Own Country or exploring the hills of the Northeast, now you can plan, book, and stay without switching tabs, juggling bookings, or starting over.