Hotel Booking Software for South African Hotels

More direct bookings.
Less manual admin.
One connected system.

Manage website, OTA and direct reservations in one place. RoomRaccoon connects a booking engine, channel manager, property management system and payment tools for independent hotels in South Africa.

  • Accept direct bookings on your hotel website
  • Keep rates and availability aligned across connected channels
  • Get guided setup and training for your team

See how bookings, availability and payments work together in a personalised demo.

Request a demo


WHY ROOMRACCOON?

Turn more enquiries into confirmed hotel bookings

Give guests a direct route to book on your website, without an OTA booking commission.

Manage room rates and seasonal offers alongside your booking calendar.

Send booking confirmations and pre-arrival information with automated guest emails.

Keep group reservations and room allotments organised for weddings or business stays.

Update availability across connected channels to reduce the risk of double bookings.

Track deposits, outstanding balances and guest details without switching between disconnected tools.

CORE PLATFORM

How your hotel booking system works together

PROPERTY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

Keep every reservation in one calendar

Bring direct and connected OTA bookings into a central reservations calendar, with guest details and booking information available to your team.

  • Manage daily arrivals and departures from a visual calendar, including room allocations and changes to a guest's stay.
  • Prepare for each arrival with online check-in and relevant extras through automated guest upselling.
  • Organise group stays with room allotments and rate plans for different booking requirements.
  • Track booking performance and deposits with reports that help you review occupancy, revenue and outstanding payments.
Explore the hotel PMS
A property management system
Direct hotel bookings with smart booking engine

BOOKING ENGINE

Let guests book directly on your website

Give guests a mobile-friendly way to check availability, choose a room and confirm their stay. Direct bookings avoid OTA booking commission; subscription and payment processing costs still apply.

  • Show live room availability and rates through a booking engine connected to your property management system.
  • Offer useful extras during booking, such as breakfast, a picnic basket or an experience at your property.
  • Create targeted offers with discount codes and agent logins for relevant promotions and rate access.
  • Help guests compare their options with a price comparison widget alongside your direct rates.
  • Explore another route to direct bookings with the Google Hotel Ads integration. Review campaign costs and eligibility before activation.
Explore the booking engine

CHANNEL MANAGER

Keep online rates and availability in sync

Manage distribution from one place instead of updating each booking channel separately. Check the connections available for the local and international channels your hotel uses.

  • Connect your online sales channels so reservations and availability can flow between your booking platforms and hotel calendar.
  • Apply pricing rules consistently across supported channels while retaining control of your rate strategy.
  • Reduce conflicting room sales with synchronised availability. Correct room mapping and active connections remain important.
  • Offer different rate plans, including refundable rates, non-refundable offers and stay packages, where supported by the channel.
Explore the channel manager
Channel manager system for hotel distribution in South Africa
Hotel payment system for secure and efficient transactions

PAYMENTS

Connect bookings with guest payments

RoomRaccoon integrates with Peach Payments for South African properties, bringing payment processing, reconciliation and virtual credit card management closer to your reservation workflow.

  • Collect payments through your connected setup and confirm the supported methods for your property and guests.
  • Track deposits and outstanding balances alongside reservations, helping your team follow up before arrival.
  • Manage OTA virtual credit cards with supported tools for tracking and processing these payments.
  • Review payment options before switching, including fees, settlement timing, refunds and any in-person payment requirements.
Explore Peach Payments

Booking reports

Review occupancy, revenue and deposits to understand how your bookings perform and which balances need attention.

Housekeeping lists

Share room requirements and guest notes with your team. For more detailed task management, explore RaccoonHousekeeping.

Meal preparation lists

Give your kitchen a daily view of booked meals and relevant guest requests, with filters for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Rates and packages

Set up room rates and stay packages for different guests, from a weekend breakfast offer to a group room allotment.

Dynamic pricing

Respond to occupancy and booking patterns with hotel dynamic pricing rules that you configure for your property.

BUILT-IN UPGRADES

Choose the tools that suit your property

Extend your booking workflow with optional tools for upselling, housekeeping, websites and pricing. Availability depends on your chosen package and region.

Build around your priorities: compare the RoomRaccoon packages and pricing before choosing your upgrades.

RaccoonUpsell

Offer relevant extras through a digital guest menu, giving guests an easy way to add services before their stay.

Explore guest upselling

RaccoonHousekeeping

Coordinate housekeeping and maintenance tasks so your team can prepare rooms for upcoming arrivals.

Explore housekeeping tools

RaccoonSite

Create a hotel website that showcases your rooms and connects guests to your direct booking engine.

Explore hotel websites

RaccoonID

Capture guest details with digital ID and passport scanning to reduce manual typing during registration.

Explore digital ID scanning

RaccoonCardMachine

Explore in-person payment options for your front desk. Confirm South African availability and compatibility with your payment setup.

Explore payment options

RaccoonRev

Use competitor rate insights and dynamic pricing rules to inform your hotel's pricing decisions.

Explore revenue tools

RaccoonRev Plus

Review AI-powered rate recommendations to support pricing decisions as booking patterns and demand change.

Explore AI pricing

RaccoonWhiteLabel

Customise your booking engine domain and remove RoomRaccoon branding from supported guest-facing documents.

Book your hotel software demo

Vive La Vie Guesthouse

"RoomRaccoon was always one step ahead of what our previous provider had to offer. When we were with our previous provider, it was good, but we still had to manually execute a lot of our manual tasks. Now, we spend a lot more time on our marketing, because the system automates so many of our daily tasks for us.”

Peter Weideman, General Manager

+331%

RevPAR increase reported by Vive La Vie between 2021 and 2022. A property-specific case-study result; outcomes vary.

Read the Vive La Vie case study

Plan your switch to connected hotel bookings

Property setup
Work through your room types, rates and booking rules with guided setup tailored to your property.
Team training
Help your team practise the booking, payment and guest workflows they will use each day.
Go-live planning
Agree a launch plan, test your booking engine and channel connections, and check that your team is ready.
Data import
Confirm which reservations and guest data can be imported from your current system, then review the transferred records before launch.
Explore hotel software onboarding

Connect the systems your hotel already uses

Browse hotel software integrations

Hotel booking software: your questions answered

1What is hotel booking software?
Hotel booking software helps a property accept and manage room reservations, availability, rates and guest details. In a connected system, website and OTA bookings feed into one calendar, while payment and communication tools support the booking journey.
2How do a booking engine, channel manager and PMS work together?
The booking engine lets guests reserve a stay on your website. The channel manager exchanges rates, availability and reservations with connected sales channels. The property management system, or PMS, gives your team a central place to manage bookings and daily operations.
3Is hotel booking software the same as hotel reservation software?
The terms often overlap. Both can describe tools for managing room reservations and availability. Compare the actual features rather than the label. For a closer look at reservation workflows, explore hotel reservation software.
4How does a direct website booking reach my hotel calendar?
A guest selects dates, a room and an available rate in the booking engine. Once the booking is confirmed, the connected PMS records the reservation and availability is updated through the channel manager. Payment collection follows your configured booking conditions.
5How much does hotel booking software cost in South Africa?
The total depends on room count, package, optional features, payment processing and any setup or integration charges. Review RoomRaccoon pricing and packages and request a quote that confirms the billing currency, applicable taxes and all recurring fees.
6Are direct bookings commission-free?
RoomRaccoon describes its booking engine as free from booking commission. That does not mean the booking has no costs: software subscriptions, payment processing and any paid marketing still need to be included when comparing direct bookings with OTA reservations.
7Can I connect local and international booking channels?
RoomRaccoon provides channel management for connected online sales channels. Before choosing a package, check your exact mix of international OTAs and South African channels, such as LekkeSlaap or SafariNow, in the integration directory. Confirm the connection type and supported features.
8Can the software prevent double bookings?
Synchronising availability reduces the risk of selling the same room twice. It cannot guarantee that overbookings will never happen. Accurate room mapping, active connections and prompt entry of phone or email reservations are still important.
9How should I handle bookings received by phone or email?
Record offline reservations in your central booking calendar as soon as they are confirmed. Include dates, room type, agreed rate, guest details and payment status so your team has a consistent record and connected availability can be updated.
10Can I collect deposits and manage guest payments?
RoomRaccoon integrates with Peach Payments in South Africa to support connected payment workflows, reconciliation and virtual credit card management. Confirm the deposit process, payment methods, settlement timing and refund options supported by your property's setup.
11Can I offer different rates and cancellation conditions?
You can create rate plans and stay packages for different booking needs. Keep payment deadlines and cancellation conditions clear to guests, and check how each connected channel handles these rules before publishing an offer.
12Can guests book extras such as breakfast or experiences?
RoomRaccoon supports bookable add-ons through its booking engine, while RaccoonUpsell provides a digital guest menu. Offer extras that your team can deliver reliably, with clear descriptions, prices and any availability conditions.
13How can I adjust prices for seasonal demand?
Use occupancy, booking pace and local events to inform your rates. RoomRaccoon offers dynamic pricing rules and optional revenue tools. Review your limits and restrictions regularly; automated pricing supports your decisions without guaranteeing higher revenue.
14Can I manage group bookings for weddings or business stays?
Room allotments help organise accommodation for groups. Confirm how room allocations, rates and payment responsibilities should work for each booking. If you also need venue, catering or event management, check those requirements separately during your demo.
15Can I automate guest emails?
Automated guest communication can help deliver confirmations, pre-arrival details and relevant stay information. Review your templates, timing and booking conditions so guests receive accurate messages, including when a reservation changes or is cancelled.
16Does RoomRaccoon support online check-in?
Yes. Online check-in lets guests provide information before arrival, helping your team prepare for their stay. Confirm which guest details and payment steps your property needs, and explain clearly how guests collect keys or access their room.
17Which booking reports should I review?
Start with occupancy, revenue, deposits and outstanding balances. Average daily rate (ADR) measures room revenue per room sold; revenue per available room (RevPAR) relates room revenue to all available rooms. Use consistent reporting periods when comparing performance.
18Do I need a new website to take direct bookings?
You may be able to add a booking engine to your existing hotel website. Check compatibility, mobile usability and the booking journey before replacing the site. RaccoonSite is an optional website solution if you also need a new hotel website.
19Can the system connect to accounting or point-of-sale software?
RoomRaccoon offers third-party integrations. Confirm that your exact accounting or POS product is supported, what information is exchanged and whether the connection carries additional fees. Test the workflows your team depends on before going live.
20Is it suitable for a small independent property?
Suitability depends on your rooms, sales channels and daily workload. Smaller teams should prioritise straightforward reservations, payments and support. Compare the dedicated small hotel management software options against your actual requirements.
21Do I need a reliable internet connection?
RoomRaccoon is a cloud-based platform, so plan for reliable internet access at your property. Keep a backup connection and an operational fallback for outages. Discuss business continuity requirements during onboarding rather than assuming the system works offline.
22How long does setup take?
Timing depends on your room configuration, data imports, payment setup, channel connections and staff training. Agree a realistic go-live plan during RoomRaccoon onboarding, with time to test bookings and review imported information.
23Can I move reservations from my current system?
Discuss migration before committing to a switch. Confirm which records can be imported, the format your current system provides and how future reservations, deposits and guest information will be checked. Do not assume every field or historical record will transfer automatically.
24What should I ask to see in a demo?
Ask to follow one booking from website reservation to payment and check-out. Then test a date change, cancellation, group reservation and OTA update. Bring your channel list and integration needs so the demonstration reflects your hotel's daily work.
25How does booking software differ from hotel management software?
Booking software centres on reservations, rates and availability. Hotel management software covers broader operations, such as housekeeping, invoicing and reporting. RoomRaccoon connects these functions, so you can assess the wider platform alongside your booking requirements.

See hotel booking software in action

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