Central Reservation System (CRS) software enables Hotel chains to manage information related to Rates, Inventory, Reservations etc. in a Centralized location. Reservations can be received from multiple properties, the Hotel’s own web site, other Global Distribution Systems (GDS), call centres, travel agents in real-time. The CRS provides interfaces to various divisions of the Hotel chain like Sales, Marketing and Hotel Managers to provide a holistic view of the Status of the hotels at any point of time.

In general, any Central Reservation System has some or all of the following features:

• A central database with data on the various properties in the chain, their Rates, Inventory, Guest profiles, Availability, Promotions, Reservation details etc.
• Web-based Booking Engine to view details on various Hotels, Availability and make Reservations using Credit Card payment gateway
• Booking engines and interfaces for GDS, Call Centres, Travel agents etc.
• Interfaces to Property Management Systems (PMS)
• Interfaces to Revenue Management Systems (RMS)
• Report Generation tools
• Two way interface applications to synchronize inventory and reservations between Property Management Systems and the CRS
• Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software to build a database of Customers, their preferences, their spending pattern in the hotels etc.