What Is a CRS in Hotels? Central Reservation System Explained
CRS stands for central reservation system. In a hotel, it is the one place that holds rates, room availability and reservations for every channel the hotel sells on and, in a group, for every property. This guide explains what a hotel CRS does, how it works, how it differs from a PMS and a channel manager, and which hotels actually need one.
CRS Full Form and Meaning in Hotels
Short answer: the full form of CRS in a hotel is central reservation system. It is software that keeps one record of rates, availability and bookings and shares it with every place the hotel's rooms are sold.
Without a CRS, each sales point keeps its own picture of the hotel. The website shows one set of rooms, each online travel agency holds its own allotment, and the reservations desk works from a chart. When a room sells in one place, somebody has to close it in the others. A central reservation system replaces those separate pictures with a single one. A booking from any source reduces the same pool of rooms, and a rate change made once reaches every channel.
The term is older than online booking. Airlines built the first computer reservation systems, and hotel chains adopted the idea so that a guest calling one number could book a room in any city. Today a hotel CRS does the same job across websites, online travel agencies, travel agents and the hotel's own reservations team.
How a Hotel CRS Works
Four steps, repeated for every booking, in a few seconds.
Rates and rooms are set once
Room types, rate plans, seasonal prices and rules such as minimum stay or stop-sell are entered in the CRS for each property.
The CRS sends them to every channel
The hotel website's booking engine, online travel agencies through the channel manager, travel agents on the GDS and the reservations office all read the same rates and the same availability.
A booking comes back
Wherever the guest books, the reservation lands in the CRS, and the room is taken out of availability on every other channel at once.
The property receives the reservation
The booking is passed to the PMS of the hotel where the guest will stay, ready for room allocation, check-in and billing.
CRS vs PMS vs Channel Manager
The three are often sold together and often confused. Each answers a different question: where do we sell, who is staying, and how do the online travel agencies stay in step.
| CRS | PMS | Channel manager | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stands for | Central reservation system | Property management system | No abbreviation in common use |
| Main job | Sell rooms: one store of rates, availability and reservations | Run the hotel: check-in, rooms, housekeeping, billing, night audit | Connect: carry rates and availability to online travel agencies and bring bookings back |
| Works at | Group or brand level, across properties | One property | One property's online channels |
| Used by | Reservations office, sales and revenue teams | Front desk, housekeeping, accounts | Runs in the background; set up by the revenue or front office manager |
| Covers | Website, online travel agencies, GDS, travel agents, phone bookings | Guests in house and their bills | Online travel agencies only |
| Without it | Each property and channel is managed separately | No check-in, no folio, no audit trail | Rates and rooms are updated by hand on each extranet |
Put simply, the central reservation system takes the booking, the PMS looks after the guest, and the channel manager is the pipe between the hotel and the online travel agencies. A booking engine is a fourth piece: it is the page on the hotel's own website where the guest books, and it reads its rates and rooms from the CRS. For more on the pipe, read what a channel manager is.
Six Things a Central Reservation System Does
The functions that separate a hotel CRS from a channel manager with a longer name.
One Pool of Rooms
Every channel sells from the same availability, so the last room cannot be sold twice and no rooms sit unsold in one channel's allotment.
Central Rates and Rules
Rate plans, seasonal prices, minimum stay and stop-sell are set in one place for each property and reach every channel together.
One Reservations Window
A central office or call centre sees availability at every property on one screen and books any of them without logging in hotel by hotel.
A Group Booking Engine
Guests on the brand website choose dates, pick a location and book, and a sold-out hotel can offer the group's nearest property instead of losing the guest.
A Shared Guest Record
A guest who stayed in one property is recognised when booking another, with past stays and preferences in front of the reservations agent.
Group-Wide Reports
Bookings by channel, by property and by date in one report, so the owner sees where business comes from without collecting a sheet from each hotel.
An Example of a CRS in a Hotel Group
Take a group with four hotels: in Jaipur, Udaipur, Jodhpur and Pushkar. Each hotel runs its own PMS at the front desk. The group has one website and a three-person reservations office in Jaipur that answers calls and travel-agent emails for all four.
A travel agent asks for twelve rooms across Jaipur and Udaipur for the same week. Without a CRS, the reservations office phones both hotels, waits for each to check its chart, and blocks the rooms by email. With a central reservation system, the agent on the phone sees both hotels' availability on one screen, books the twelve rooms in one go, and each booking appears in the right hotel's PMS. The rooms come off the website and the online travel agencies in the same moment. If Udaipur is full, the screen shows that Jodhpur has rooms, and the business stays in the group.
Who Needs a CRS, and Who Does Not
A single hotel usually does not need a separate CRS. A PMS with a built-in channel manager and booking engine already keeps one set of rates and one pool of rooms for every channel. That is the job of a central reservation system, done inside the PMS. Buying a CRS on top adds a second system to keep in step and nothing a single property can use.
A CRS earns its place when any of these is true:
The group has two or more properties and wants guests, agents or its own staff to book any of them from one place.
Reservations are taken by a central office or call centre, not only at each front desk.
The brand website sells several locations and should offer a sister hotel when one is full.
The owner wants rates, availability and booking reports for the whole group without logging in to each hotel.
When you compare systems, check three things. First, whether the CRS and the PMS exchange bookings in both directions without re-entry: a change made at the front desk must reach the central system as surely as a central booking reaches the hotel. Second, whether the CRS, the channel manager and the booking engine come from one vendor or have to be connected and supported separately. Third, how the price grows as you add properties.
Exceed is built as one platform: the Exceed central reservation system for hotel groups works together with the PMS at each property, the channel manager and the booking engine, with one login for every hotel in the group. For the full picture of what the platform covers, see the hotel management software guide.
Related Reading
The other pieces of hotel distribution, explained the same way.
Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions about the CRS in hotels
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What is the full form of CRS in a hotel?
CRS stands for central reservation system, also written central reservations system. In a hotel it is the software that holds rates, room availability and reservations in one place for every booking channel and, in a group, for every property.
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What is a CRS in the hotel industry?
In the hotel industry a CRS is the central system through which rooms are sold. It sends rates and availability to the hotel website, online travel agencies, travel agents and the reservations office, takes back every booking made on them, and passes each reservation to the property where the guest will stay.
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What is the difference between a CRS and a PMS?
A PMS runs one hotel: check-in, room allocation, housekeeping, billing and night audit. A CRS sells rooms: it manages rates, availability and reservations across channels and across properties. The CRS takes the booking and the PMS looks after the guest once the booking exists. In a hotel group the two are connected so a reservation made centrally appears in the right property's PMS.
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Is a CRS the same as a channel manager?
No. A channel manager is a connection: it carries rates and availability to online travel agencies and brings bookings back. A CRS is the store those rates, availability and reservations live in, and it also serves the hotel website, the reservations office and travel agents. A CRS normally uses a channel manager to reach the online travel agencies.
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Does a single hotel need a CRS?
Usually not as a separate product. For one property, a PMS with a built-in channel manager and booking engine already keeps one set of rates and availability for every channel, which is what a CRS does. A separate central reservation system starts to matter with a second property, a shared reservations office or a group website that sells every location.
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What is the difference between a CRS and a GDS?
A CRS belongs to the hotel or hotel group and holds its own rooms and rates. A GDS, or global distribution system, is a network such as Amadeus, Sabre or Travelport that travel agents use to book hotels, flights and cars from many suppliers. A hotel CRS connects to the GDS so that travel agents can see and book its rooms.
Running more than one property? Book a free online demo of Exceed CRS