A photo-led website that sells rooms directly, a booking engine that shows live rooms, rates and the full price with tax before payment, WhatsApp confirmations and pre-arrival check-in, and a pipeline for weddings, offsites and group stays. For resorts, hotels, villas and homestays in Lonavala, Alibaug, Igatpuri, Karjat, Mahabaleshwar, Goa and across India, working alongside the OTAs and channel manager you already use.
Reply within one business day · Navi Mumbai team · Website, app and admin under one roof
Rooms, rates, guests and enquiries in one place, so more guests book with you directly and every stay starts well before check-in.
A fast, photo-led website that ranks for your destination and turns lookers into direct bookings.
The engine behind the website, plus the messages that keep guests informed before, during and after the stay.
The office side, for owners, front office, reservations and sales.
A family in Navi Mumbai planning a monsoon weekend at Lonavala, Karjat or Igatpuri searches on a phone, compares prices on two OTAs and Google, looks at photos and reviews, and books in a few taps. Most independent hotels and resorts get a large share of their bookings through OTAs such as MakeMyTrip, Goibibo, Booking.com, Agoda and Airbnb. They bring guests a property could never reach alone, but every booking carries a commission, and the OTA keeps the guest’s contact and the relationship.
Many of those guests would book direct if it were as easy. They look up the resort’s own website and find an old site with an enquiry form, a phone number that rings out on a Saturday, or a WhatsApp message that gets a reply two hours later. Repeat guests who loved their stay go back through the OTA next time because nobody kept in touch. The weekday problem is the opposite: rooms empty from Monday to Thursday, and nobody is talking to the corporate HR teams and schools who book offsites and trips.
Then there is the front desk. Inventory kept in a register or a spreadsheet goes wrong on long weekends, when the same villa is sold on two channels. Guest IDs are photocopied and filed. Foreign guests must be reported to the authorities, and since September 2025 this falls under the new Immigration and Foreigners Act. GST on rooms changed in September 2025, and restaurants inside hotels follow a separate rule that depends on room prices in the previous year. Weddings and offsites, often the most valuable bookings of the year, run on personal WhatsApp and phone calls, with quotes going out late and nobody tracking which enquiries turned into bookings.
Infoways, a web, app and software company in Mahape, Navi Mumbai, builds hotel and resort websites, direct booking engines, guest messaging and enquiry tools for properties in the weekend markets around Mumbai and Pune, in Goa and across India. Below: how each part works, the rules a booking engine must respect, how it compares with ready-made hotel software, and the numbers that show whether direct bookings are actually growing.
Who uses each part, what they see on screen, and the cases that decide whether it earns its keep on a busy weekend.
Used by guests on their phones. They pick dates, adults and children with ages, and see each room type with real photos, size, bed type, view and meal plan options: room only, with breakfast, or with breakfast and dinner. The price shown is the full price with taxes, so nothing new appears at the last step. Rules handle minimum stay on long weekends, extra bed and child charges, early check-in requests and villa occupancy limits. The cancellation policy is shown before payment, in plain words. The engine is built to load fast on mobile data, because most guests book from a phone.
Solved in your appUsed by the owner or reservations manager. One calendar shows every room type by date: rooms left, rate by meal plan, minimum stay and stop-sell. Weekend, long weekend, festival and monsoon rates are set as seasons, not typed day by day. Where you use a channel manager, the booking engine connects to it, so a room sold on the website closes on every OTA and the other way round. Without one, the calendar is still the single record, and the team closes OTA inventory by hand with a clear list of what changed.
Solved in your appGuests pay a deposit or the full amount by UPI, card or net banking through a payment gateway in the hotel’s own name, so money goes straight to your account. Advance rules can differ by season: a small advance on weekdays, full payment for New Year’s Eve. Balances can be collected at check-in or by a payment link a few days before arrival. Cancellations follow the policy the guest saw, and refunds go back through the gateway with a record. Each payment is tied to the booking, so the front desk never asks a guest to show a screenshot.
Solved in your appGuests get the confirmation on WhatsApp and email, with the booking details and invoice. Two days before arrival, a message carries directions, a map pin, check-in time, the restaurant menu and a link to upload ID for every adult. At the gate, the front desk already has the guest’s details and IDs, so check-in takes minutes. Messages go from your own WhatsApp Business number, using templates approved for the WhatsApp Business API. Replies from guests land in a shared inbox the front office can see, not on one staff member’s phone.
Solved in your appUsed by the front desk. Every stay records the guests, their ID details and arrival and departure times, in the form local police commonly expect hotels to keep. For foreign guests, the panel captures passport and visa details needed for the Form C report and reminds staff to file it on the government portal in time. The software prepares the data; the filing itself is done on the official portal by your staff. ID images are stored with limited access and deleted after the period your adviser sets.
Solved in your appEnquiries from the website, phone, WhatsApp and wedding planners go into a pipeline with date, guest count, rooms needed, lawn or banquet, catering and budget. The sales manager gets a task to quote the same day. Quotes are built from room blocks, function space and per-plate menus, and sent as a PDF. The pipeline tracks site visits, follow-ups, advances and the final function sheet the kitchen and decor team work from. Room blocks for a wedding are held in the calendar and released on the agreed date if not confirmed.
Solved in your appGuests compare prices on Google before they book. Google’s free booking links can show your direct rate beside OTA prices, but they need your Business Profile to be connected through an approved connectivity partner, which is often your channel manager or booking engine provider, and the price on the link must match your website. We set up and clean your Business Profile, connect the booking engine where the partner allows, and send a review request after checkout. Replies to reviews are written by your team, not by software.
Solved in your appThe owner sees occupancy, average rate, revenue by channel, direct share, cancellations and open event enquiries, by property and season. Invoices carry GST worked out per room night on the rules your CA confirms, including the rate change of September 2025 and the restaurant treatment that depends on last year’s room prices. Bookings, advances, refunds and invoices export to Tally or the format your accountant uses. For a group of resorts, each property is separate, with a combined view for the owners.
Solved in your appTell us your rooms, the channels you use and where your bookings come from. We will tell you what to fix first on your website and booking engine.
These points come from GST notifications, competition and consumer protection orders, immigration law and Google’s own terms, as reported up to October 2026. Local licences differ by state and city.
| Term or rule | 1What it means | 2How the software handles it |
|---|---|---|
| GST on room nights from 22 September 2025 | Rooms priced at or below a per-night value threshold set by the GST Council moved to 5% GST without input tax credit. Rooms above it are taxed at 18% with credit. The test is now the actual price charged per unit per day, not a declared tariff. | GST is worked out per room per night on the price actually charged, using the rates and threshold your CA confirms, so a discount that changes the slab changes the tax. |
| Restaurants in specified premises | Since 1 April 2025, a hotel’s restaurant is reported to be taxed at 18% with credit if any room in the previous financial year was supplied above the threshold, and at 5% without credit otherwise (with an option to choose 18%). | The property’s restaurant tax treatment is a setting your CA confirms each year, applied to food and banquet invoices. |
| OTA parity clauses | In October 2022, the Competition Commission of India fined MakeMyTrip-Goibibo and OYO and directed MakeMyTrip-Goibibo to remove price and room availability parity and exclusivity terms from hotel agreements. Reports in 2025 said parity language still appeared in some contracts. | Direct rates and offers are set by you. Before offering a lower direct price, read your current OTA contracts and take advice; the software does not decide your rate strategy. |
| Dark patterns guidelines 2023 | The Central Consumer Protection Authority’s guidelines treat false urgency (its own example is a hotel showing “Only 2 rooms left” with made-up demand), drip pricing and basket sneaking as dark patterns. | The booking engine shows the full price with tax upfront, adds nothing to the cart without the guest’s choice, and shows a rooms-left message only when it is true from the calendar. |
| Cancellation and refund terms | Under the Consumer Protection Act 2019, guests should know the terms before they pay, and unfair terms can be challenged. Refund disputes are a common source of complaints. | The cancellation policy for the rate plan is shown before payment and repeated in the confirmation. Refunds follow it automatically and are logged. |
| Form C for foreign guests | The Immigration and Foreigners Act 2025 and its Rules came into force on 1 September 2025. Hotels, guesthouses, homestays and other hosts must report foreign guests on Form C (also called Form-III), reported as within 24 hours of arrival. | Passport and visa details are captured at check-in or pre-arrival, the data is laid out for the portal, and staff get a reminder until the report is marked filed. |
| Guest register and ID | Police in many cities and tourist areas expect hotels to keep a register of guests with ID proof, and some issue local orders on how. Requirements differ by place. | Every guest’s ID details are recorded per stay, with printable registers for inspection. Access to ID images is limited by role. |
| Licences and registrations | Properties commonly need a local body trade licence, fire safety clearance, FSSAI registration or licence for the kitchen, a liquor licence for a bar, and in Maharashtra, small homestays may register under the state’s bed and breakfast scheme. | Licence numbers and expiry dates are stored with reminders, and those you must display can be shown on the website footer and invoices. |
| Google free booking links | Google can show a hotel’s own booking link beside OTA prices at no charge, through an approved connectivity partner linked to the Business Profile. The price on the link must match the website. | The booking engine connects through your partner where it allows, and rates come from the same calendar, so Google and your website always match. |
| Guest data under the DPDP Act 2023 | Names, phone numbers, ID copies and payment records are personal data. The hotel decides why it collects them and must protect them. | Consent on booking and ID upload, access by role, a retention period for ID images, and export logs. |
These points come from GST notifications, CCI and CCPA documents, the Immigration and Foreigners Act and Google’s help pages, as reported by tax, legal and trade publications. Thresholds and rules change, and local orders differ. Confirm each point with your CA, legal adviser and the local police or tourism office before it goes into the software. We build what they approve.
Most hotels asking us about a booking engine already use some hotel software. Property management systems such as eZee Absolute, Djubo and Hotelogix run the front desk. Channel managers such as eZee Centrix, STAAH, AxisRooms and SiteMinder keep rooms and rates in sync across OTAs. Most of these vendors also sell a booking engine you can put on your website. Features change every year, so compare current versions directly.
For most single properties, the honest answer is to use a good channel manager and its booking engine, and put real effort into the website around it. That gives you live inventory, OTA sync and a working checkout quickly, and the vendor carries the upkeep. Before you sign, check that the booking engine shows the full price with tax upfront, that payments go to your own gateway account, that it supports your meal plans and child rules, that it can connect to Google’s free booking links, and that you can export all guest and booking data.
A custom build makes sense in a narrower set of cases: a group of resorts or villas that wants one brand and one booking flow across properties, villas and private estates with unusual rules (whole-villa booking, per-head pricing, chef add-ons), a resort where weddings and offsites matter as much as rooms, or an owner who wants a proper guest database and repeat-guest marketing that the OTA will never give you. Even then, we connect to the channel manager you already use rather than replacing it. Our guide on custom software vs off-the-shelf covers the trade-off.
Almost every property keeps OTAs for reach. The question is how much of the business you can win back directly, and how much control you want.
| Factor | 1OTAs and phone bookings only | 2Channel manager with its booking engine | 3Your own website and booking platform |
|---|---|---|---|
| Best for | Brand-new properties testing demand | Most single hotels and resorts | Resort groups, villa collections, wedding-led resorts |
| Who owns the guest | The OTA | You, for direct bookings | You, with a full guest history |
| Commission | On every booking | None on direct bookings | None on direct bookings |
| Inventory sync | Manual, risk of overbooking | Built in | Through your channel manager |
| Packages, villas and events | Limited to OTA formats | Standard room and rate plans | Shaped to your property and events |
| Repeat guest marketing | Not possible | Basic | Your own guest database and offers |
| Time to start | Already running | Days to a few weeks | Weeks to months, in phases |
Product names are mentioned only to help you compare. Check each vendor’s current features, OTA connections and terms directly.
Each one comes from bookings, the calendar and the website. Watch the trend, not one weekend.
Room nights booked direct (website, WhatsApp, phone, walk-in) against all room nights, by month. This is the number the whole project exists to move. Track it separately for repeat and first-time guests.
Solved in your appAverage room rate after commission and gateway charges, for each OTA and for direct bookings. A channel that looks busy can be the least profitable once commission is taken out.
Solved in your appRooms sold against rooms available, and average rate per room sold, split into weekdays and weekends. Resorts near Mumbai often run full on weekends and thin on weekdays, so the weekday number is where offsites and packages matter.
Solved in your appRoom revenue divided by all rooms available, sold or not. It joins occupancy and rate into one figure, so a discount that fills rooms but cuts revenue shows up honestly.
Solved in your appVisitors who started a search on the booking engine against those who paid. A low figure usually points to slow pages, a price that changes at the last step, or too many form fields.
Solved in your appShare of guests who stayed before, and your average Google rating with the number of new reviews each month. Both feed direct bookings: repeat guests book direct when asked, and new guests trust recent reviews.
Solved in your appWedding, offsite and group enquiries that became confirmed bookings, and the average days from enquiry to quote. Slow quotes lose events to the resort that replied first.
Solved in your appCancelled and no-show room nights by channel and rate plan. A high figure on one OTA or on fully refundable rates tells you where to change advance and cancellation rules.
Solved in your appWe list room types, meal plans, seasons, child and extra bed rules, cancellation policies, the OTAs and channel manager you use, and how events are sold. Your CA confirms GST treatment for rooms and the restaurant.
Fresh photos if the current ones are old or dark, then room, package, dining, activity and location pages built for your destination searches. The owner approves the copy.
The hotel opens a payment gateway in its own name. We set up the booking engine with full-price display, advance rules and policies, connect it to your channel manager, and run test bookings, cancellations and refunds on every room type.
WhatsApp templates approved, confirmation, pre-arrival, ID upload and review messages tested on staff phones, and the shared inbox set up for the front office.
Enquiry forms, quote templates and function sheets for the sales team. Google Business Profile cleaned up and free booking links connected through your partner where available.
Hands-on sessions in Hindi, Marathi or English for reservations, front desk and sales, including how to handle a guest whose payment failed and how to file foreign guest reports on time.
Before launch we check prices with tax, inventory sync, invoices, role access and exports with the owner. Launch is timed for a quiet week, not a long weekend, and maintenance and support continues as seasons, rates and rules change.
Send us your website link and last season’s booking split by channel. We will tell you honestly what is holding back direct bookings, even if the answer is photos, not software.
Every property is different, so we quote after understanding yours. A fast website for a homestay or a single villa, with a vendor booking engine embedded, is a small project. A full resort website with your own booking engine connected to your channel manager, payments, WhatsApp pre-arrival, guest register data and an events pipeline is a medium one. A platform for a group of resorts or a villa collection, with one brand, many properties, owner reports and repeat-guest marketing, is a large one.
The cost goes up with the number of properties and room types, how unusual your rates and packages are (whole-villa pricing, per-head meal plans, event packages), whether a channel manager and PMS must be connected and how open their APIs are, how many languages the site needs, and whether a photo and video shoot is needed. It comes down if you use your channel manager’s booking engine to start and invest first in the website, photos and Google presence, then add your own engine and events tools once direct bookings start to grow.
Timelines: a hotel website takes 3-6 weeks once photos and room details are ready. A website with your own booking engine, payments and guest messages takes around 2-3 months. A multi-property platform runs about 4-6 months in phases. See custom website development for how we build sites, and local SEO for showing up when guests search near your destination.
Do not drop OTAs the day your booking engine goes live. They bring guests who have never heard of you. The aim is to win repeat guests and people who search for you by name back to direct booking over time, while OTAs keep filling rooms on quiet days.
Do not launch a booking engine without one live room calendar. If the website and the OTAs each think the same villa is free, you will overbook on the busiest weekend of the year. Connect a channel manager, or keep strict manual control until you do.
Do not show a lower base price and add taxes and fees at the end. Guests drop off, and drip pricing and false urgency are named as dark patterns in the consumer protection guidelines. Show the full price, and show “rooms left” only when it is true.
Do not offer a direct-only rate without reading your OTA contracts. Parity terms were the subject of a CCI order in 2022, but what your contract says still matters. Take advice first.
And do not spend on a new website with poor photos. Guests book hotels on photos first. If your current photos are old or dark, plan a proper shoot before launch; it will do more for direct bookings than any feature. If you have fewer than ten rooms and no one to answer WhatsApp quickly, a good Google Business Profile and a vendor booking engine may be all you need for now.
Ask us on WhatsApp. A real person from our Navi Mumbai team replies.
Ask on WhatsAppOTAs bring reach, but each booking carries a commission and the OTA keeps the guest relationship. A booking engine on your website lets repeat guests and people who search for you by name book with you, so more of the room rate stays with you and you can stay in touch for the next stay.
Not if rooms are in sync. A channel manager keeps one live inventory across your website and OTAs, so a room booked on one closes on the others. We connect to the channel manager you already use where it allows.
In 2022 the Competition Commission of India directed MakeMyTrip-Goibibo to remove price and room availability parity terms from hotel contracts, but your current contracts still matter. Read them and take advice before offering a lower direct rate. Many hotels offer direct-booking extras such as a free breakfast or late checkout instead.
From 22 September 2025, rooms priced at or below a per-night threshold set by the GST Council attract 5% GST without input tax credit, and rooms above it 18% with credit, based on the actual price charged. Your CA should confirm the current threshold and rates, and the booking engine applies them per room night.
Since April 2025, it depends on whether the property counts as specified premises, which is reported to turn on whether any room in the previous financial year was supplied above the threshold. That decides between 18% with credit and 5% without. Ask your CA each year; the software applies what they confirm.
Yes. Under the Immigration and Foreigners Act 2025, in force from 1 September 2025, hotels and other hosts must report foreign guests on Form C, reported as within 24 hours of arrival. The software captures passport and visa details and reminds staff, but the report is filed on the official portal by your staff.
Yes. Guests pay an advance or the full amount by UPI, card or net banking through a gateway in your name. Advance rules can differ by season, and the balance can be collected at check-in or by a payment link before arrival.
Yes. Guests get the confirmation, a pre-arrival message with directions and an ID upload link, and a thank-you after checkout on WhatsApp from your own business number, along with email.
Google’s free booking links show your own booking link beside OTA prices at no charge. Your Business Profile must be connected through an approved connectivity partner, often your channel manager or booking engine provider, and the price must match your website. We set this up where your partner supports it.
Only if it is true. The consumer protection guidelines on dark patterns use exactly this hotel example of false urgency, and also name drip pricing. Our booking engine shows rooms left only from the live calendar and shows the full price upfront.
For most single properties, yes: a good channel manager and its booking engine, with a strong website around it, is the sensible start. Custom makes sense for resort groups, villa collections, wedding-led resorts and owners who want their own guest database and repeat-guest marketing.
Yes. Enquiries go into a pipeline with date, guest count, rooms and function space. The sales team gets tasks to quote and follow up, room blocks are held in the calendar until the agreed date, and the final function sheet goes to the kitchen and decor team.
Yes. A small property gets a fast website with photos, rates and a booking or enquiry button, often with a vendor booking engine to start. It can grow into your own engine later.
Guest names, phone numbers, ID copies and payment records are personal data under the DPDP Act 2023. We build consent on booking and ID upload, access by role so only the front desk sees IDs, a retention period your adviser sets, and logs for every export.
A website takes 3-6 weeks once photos, room details and rates are ready. Your own booking engine with payments, channel sync and guest messages takes around 2-3 months. We time launch for a quiet week, never a long weekend.
Talk to our Navi Mumbai team about your property, rooms, channels and events. We will give you a clear plan, an honest view on ready-made hotel software, and a price.
Website, software, SEO, or AI automation — tell us what you’re trying to achieve and we’ll come back within one business day, usually the same day, with honest, specific advice. No cost, no commitment.
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