Direct bookings up. Manual check-ins down. Shipped in 14 weeks.

Booking engine, PMS, guest app, and housekeeping in one connected system. Built for Citybreak Apartments in Ireland in 14 weeks: 3× direct bookings, 40% less manual check-in time. Fixed cost, agreed before week one.

See the Citybreak build

RaftLabs builds custom travel and hospitality software, including hotel booking engines, property management systems, guest apps, and operational dashboards, for hotels, serviced apartments, and travel companies across the US, UK, and Europe. RaftLabs has delivered 30+ hospitality projects, including Citybreak Apartments in Ireland where direct bookings tripled within 14 weeks of launch. Most hospitality platforms ship in 10 to 14 weeks at a fixed cost agreed before development starts.

Recognition

Sound familiar?

  • Paying 15-20% OTA commission on bookings that should be direct because your website can't compete with Booking.com's checkout?

  • Housekeeping calling the front desk to confirm rooms are ready because the PMS doesn't show real-time status, while guests wait at check-in?

  • Reservations arriving from three OTAs and your team manually re-keying them into the PMS every morning?

  • Pre-arrival the most underused touchpoint in the journey: no digital check-in, no upsells, no message to the guest before they walk in?

Companies we've built for

Vodafone
Nike
Microsoft
Cisco
T-Mobile
Aldi
Heineken
GE

The four broken seams in hospitality ops

  1. 01
    Problem

    Your hotel pays 15-25% commission on every OTA booking because your direct channel doesn't convert well enough to reduce dependence

    Solution

    OTA commission starts as a predictable distribution cost. It becomes the largest line item in your P&L when your direct booking channel is too weak to pull bookings away from it. The OTA controls the customer relationship and shapes rate expectations. According to Cloudbeds' Big Book of OTAs (2024), OTAs captured 61% of independent hotel bookings in 2024, charging 15–30% commission per booking, and for the first time OTA platforms surpassed hotel direct channels in gross bookings. A direct booking platform with a conversion-optimised checkout, loyalty incentives for direct bookers, rate parity management, and room-type upsells reduces OTA dependence in direct proportion to its conversion improvement. The commission savings on direct bookings pay for the platform. Most properties recover the build cost within the first booking season.

  2. 02
    Problem

    Your PMS staff spend two hours every morning reconciling reservations from multiple OTAs because the channel manager doesn't sync in real time

    Solution

    When OTA reservations arrive as emails or need manual entry into the PMS, every booking becomes a data entry task. Double bookings happen when channel availability doesn't update fast enough. Rate changes require manual edits across five platforms. A channel manager integration that syncs availability and rates in real time across all OTA channels, and automatically creates reservations in the PMS on booking, removes the daily reconciliation work and closes the double-booking risk entirely.

  3. 03
    Problem

    Your guest experience starts at check-in because there's no pre-arrival communication, no digital key option, and no way for guests to flag requests before they arrive

    Solution

    The window between booking confirmation and arrival is the most underused touchpoint in hospitality. Pre-arrival messages, digital check-in, room preference capture, and add-on upsell set guest expectations, cut check-in desk congestion, and generate incremental revenue before the guest reaches the property. A mobile guest app or web-based pre-arrival flow that handles these interactions replaces the arrival desk conversation with a smoother sequence that starts the moment the booking confirms.

  4. 04
    Problem

    Your housekeeping workflow runs on walkie-talkies and WhatsApp, so room status is always thirty minutes behind reality

    Solution

    When housekeeping status is reported verbally or through messaging apps, the front desk doesn't know a room is clean until someone physically walks over to say so. Guests waiting past check-in time are the most consistent source of negative reviews. A property operations system that assigns rooms to housekeeping staff on mobile, updates room status in real time, and triggers automatic check-in notifications when a room is ready closes the thirty-minute lag and its downstream damage to guest experience.

What we build for hospitality

  1. Custom hospitality platforms

    Off-the-shelf tools rarely match how a property actually runs. We build custom platforms that hold the booking, PMS, guest, and operations layers in one system, shipped live in 12 to 14 weeks. Properties that go live on a custom platform stop paying for disconnected software subscriptions and own the system outright.

    • Custom hospitality software shaped to your workflows
    • Multi-property-ready architecture
    • Secure cloud backend with role-based access
    • Integration with PMS, booking engines, payment gateways, and third-party APIs

  2. Mobile guest apps

    Guests expect to check in, open the door, order room service, and pay without queuing. We build mobile guest apps for iOS and Android that move every front-desk interaction onto the guest's phone. Properties that ship a guest app report shorter check-in queues and higher ancillary spend per stay.

    • iOS and Android apps shaped around the guest journey
    • Digital check-in, check-out, and keyless entry
    • In-app service requests, push notifications, and upsell
    • Real-time sync with PMS and booking systems

  3. PMS, POS, and CRM integrations

    Disconnected systems are how reservations get lost, rates drift, and guest profiles fragment across channels. We connect your PMS, POS, CRM, booking engines, and payment gateways so they share one source of truth. A connected stack means your team stops reconciling data and starts using it.

    • Centralised data flow across CRM, POS, PMS, and booking systems
    • Real-time sync of guest profiles, transactions, and room availability
    • Channel manager integration that closes the double-booking risk
    • Custom dashboards for reporting, analytics, and decisions

  4. Loyalty and guest engagement

    Direct bookings stay direct when the guest has a reason to return to your channel. We build custom loyalty programmes that pair member rates with automated guest engagement, tied back to your PMS and booking platform. Properties with a loyalty layer see measurably higher repeat booking rates than those without one.

    • Custom loyalty tiers, rules, and reward logic
    • Integration with booking engines, CRM, and guest apps
    • Automated offers, rewards, and engagement triggers
    • Analytics for retention, lifetime value, and repeat bookings

Recent hospitality work

What clients say

What our clients say

Three-year average engagement. Founders and operators describing the work in their own words. No marketing varnish.

Paula Castro
Paula Castro
Ireland flagIreland
Co-Founder, City Break Apartments

RaftLabs delivered everything we asked for and more, going above and beyond to meet our expectations throughout the project.

Common questions

Yes. RaftLabs built a serviced apartment booking and property management platform for Citybreak Apartments in Ireland that cut manual check-in time by 40%. A custom booking engine with guest self-check-in, real-time availability, payment processing, and a property management back-office is the type of hospitality platform we build and deploy in 10 to 14 weeks.

Yes. Guest experience apps with mobile check-in, room access, in-room service requests, restaurant reservations, and direct messaging with the front desk are a core hospitality product we build. The guest experience starts in their hands before they arrive, not when they queue at the front desk.

Yes. Direct booking engines with real-time availability, member-only rates, package upsells, and a better checkout than a generic OTA listing, integrated with your PMS, are a core hospitality product we build. Shifting bookings from commission-paying channels to owned direct channels is a measurable revenue gain for every property that makes the shift.

Yes. PMS integration, connecting the booking engine to your existing PMS for real-time availability, reservation management, and guest profile sync, is a standard part of hospitality software projects. The approach depends on your PMS vendor's API. We scope the integration during discovery and confirm the data exchange before development starts.

Most hospitality software projects deliver in 10 to 14 weeks. A booking engine with PMS integration and a guest app typically falls in the $20k to $40k range. RaftLabs has delivered 30+ projects for hospitality brands including serviced apartment operators and hotel groups. Fixed cost, agreed before development starts.

Hospitality software by product

01

Hospitality software development

PMS, guest apps, and operations tooling overview

02

Hospitality booking system development

Direct booking, real-time availability, PMS integration

03

Hotel property management system development

Reservations, front desk, housekeeping, night audit

04

Hotel guest experience app development

Mobile check-in, digital room key, F&B ordering

05

Hotel restaurant and F&B management software

Table management, kitchen display, room charge posting

06

Hotel housekeeping and revenue management

Room status tracking, dynamic pricing, channel parity

Talk to us about your hospitality software project.

Tell us your property type, your current tech stack, and the operational problem you need to solve: direct bookings, guest experience, or operations. We'll scope the right system.

  • Scope and cost agreed before work starts. No surprises. No obligation.
  • Working prototype within 3 weeks of kickoff.
  • Pay by milestone. You see progress before each invoice.
  • 60-day post-launch warranty. Bug fixes, UI tweaks, and deployment support. No retainer.
  • All conversations are NDA-protected.