FAQ — Websites and channel manager for hotels in Nosy Be: every answer before you entrust your digitalization to us

A channel manager is a piece of software that automatically syncs your availability, rates and restrictions across all your distribution platforms (Booking, Airbnb, Expedia, your website) in real time. In practice, when a room is booked on Booking, it instantly becomes unavailable everywhere else — no more risk of overbooking, and no more manual calendar management.

Beds24 is the most flexible and affordable channel manager on the market, particularly well suited to small and mid-sized properties. It connects over 100 OTAs, offers a direct booking engine you can embed on your site, and its scalable pricing works just as well for a 5-room lodge as for a 30-room hotel. SYJ Solution is an official Beds24 partner, which guarantees an optimal setup.

For a standard 5-to-12-room property, the full setup takes 3 to 5 business days. That includes configuring room types, seasonal rates and restrictions, connecting your existing OTAs, synchronization testing and staff training. A property with more than 15 rooms and several OTAs may need 5 to 8 days.

Beds24 integrates with over 100 booking platforms including Booking.com, Airbnb, Expedia, Agoda, Hotels.com, HRS, TripAdvisor, HomeAway and Vrbo. Every OTA that matters for hotels in Madagascar and Nosy Be is supported. Synchronization is two-way on the main platforms.

Beds24 runs on a robust cloud infrastructure with uptime above 99.9%. Complete outages are extremely rare. If an incident occurs, the Beds24 team steps in within 24 hours at most, and for our Elite clients, SYJ Solution provides priority support with direct access to Beds24 technicians.

Booking takes a 15 to 25% commission on every booking. A website with a direct booking engine lets you capture that margin: for a lodge making €100,000 in annual revenue, that is €15,000 to €25,000 in recovered commissions. On top of that, having your own site strengthens your credibility with international travelers, who always check that an official website exists.

SYJ Solution offers three website tiers: a simple showcase site at €900, a full multilingual site at €1,500, and a site with the Beds24 booking engine integrated at €2,000. These prices include custom design, the first year of hosting and training on how to update your site. A complete package including Beds24 setup, multilingual site, professional photos and the first year of subscription is available at €5,900.

A simple showcase site is delivered in 5 to 7 business days. A full multilingual site takes 10 to 15 days. A site with an integrated booking engine requires 15 to 20 days, to allow Beds24 configuration and testing in parallel. These timelines assume your content (text, photos) is available; if a photo shoot needs to be organized, add 3 to 5 days.

Yes. The full multilingual site comes in French and English by default. Italian can be added on request (an option included for Nosy Be given the large Italian clientele). Descriptions, forms, buttons and legal pages are all translated. For a hotel targeting several markets, a multilingual site can increase conversion rates by 30 to 50%.

For a property in Nosy Be or Nosy Komba, the most effective combination is Booking.com (the undisputed leader, a must-have), Airbnb (excellent for French and Italian guests), and Expedia (to capture Northern European travelers). For premium lodges, we add TripAdvisor for credibility and sometimes Agoda for Asian guests. Three well-optimized OTAs are worth more than eight poorly managed ones.

Booking charges a standard 15% commission, which can rise to 18-20% if the hotel joins the Genius program. Airbnb takes between 3% and 15% depending on the pricing model you choose. Expedia is between 15% and 25%. For a lodge with €100,000 in annual revenue and 80% of bookings coming through OTAs, that is €12,000 to €20,000 in commissions per year — hence the value of a direct booking engine.

The most effective strategy rests on three pillars: having a professional website with a direct booking engine, offering an exclusive perk on direct bookings (10% discount, free upgrade, bottle of wine), and actively working your Google Business profile and social media to capture direct traffic. Within 12 to 18 months, a well-supported hotel can go from 90% to 50% OTA dependence.

Reply to 100% of reviews, positive and negative, within 48 hours. For positive ones, thank the guest warmly and mention a specific detail of their experience. For negative ones, never get defensive: acknowledge, explain, offer a solution. Booking boosts the ranking of hotels that reply to their reviews. A lodge that replies systematically gains 3 to 5 ranking positions over 6 months.

SYJ Solution invoices in euros by default, with an indicative ariary conversion on quotes (rate of 5,000 MGA to 1 EUR). Payment is accepted in euros by international bank transfer, or in ariary in cash or via Mobile Money (Orange Money, Airtel Money). A 50% deposit is requested at signing, with the balance due on delivery.

Yes, SYJ Solution monthly subscriptions (Starter, Growth, Elite) come with a 6-month minimum commitment. This protects the working relationship and allows SYJ to absorb the onboarding cost. A non-refundable €120 setup fee applies at sign-up. In the event of early termination, the balance of the remaining months remains due.

Support depends on the subscription tier. The Starter pack (€150/month) includes the WhatsApp hotline and OTA fixes. The Growth pack (€320/month) adds Beds24 price updates. The Elite pack (€480/month) includes a monthly performance report with analysis and recommendations. Outside a subscription, one-off jobs are billed at €120/hour.