According to statistics, 76% of online bookings are made through online travel agencies. OTAs cut a part of the revenue from every booking with their commission which is usually from 15 to 30%.
Online distribution channels allow travelers to search for accommodations quickly and efficiently and choose the offer that suits them the most. This is the reason why it is important to compare prices both on OTA and your hotel website. Even well-off travelers would prefer Booking.com or Expedia if they offer lower day rates than your hotel website.
Currently, this is even more crucial as travelers can easily find and compare price offers on Google or Tripadvisor. If prices on your website are higher than on OTAs, you are likely to be decreasing the website conversion. For this reason, large hotel chains claim that they guarantee “The best deal” throughout the entire booking process.
Along with price parity, make sure to check your cancellation policy, payment methods and other rate plan descriptions. Ensure that booking conditions on your hotel website are the same as or even better than conditions offered by OTAs.
Encourage your potential and return guests to book your rooms directly on the hotel website instead of on online distribution channels.
Below, we will list several valuable practices that could let you get more website bookings that bring you a bigger profit.
Keep several rooms available for direct booking
During peak seasons and periods of high demand, the number of requests for vacant rooms increases significantly. Many accommodations note that these days the high season starts much earlier than before. This gives you an opportunity to get 100% occupancy and increase the revenue taking the most out of your hotel website at the same time.
When the demand is high, as soon as a hotel opens up extra availability, intermediate travel booking websites are here to sell it. OTAs are great for filling in vacant rooms quickly but in this case, hotels lose both money on high commission charges and opportunities to keep in touch with guests later.
TravelLine has a feature that lets hotels prioritize direct sales — do not sell the last N rooms to OTAs. It prevents you from having low-margin bookings and lets you both cut down the commission charges and decrease the cancellation rate. According to our research, website bookings are cancelled two times less often than OTA bookings. Users cancel 60% of OTA bookings and only 30% of website bookings.
Learn more about how to keep availability for direct sales.
Work on your clientele
Many accommodations divide and conquer — segment guest types to match the hotel services to them. For example, hotels offer their return guests special conditions like discounts, room upgrades, loyalty cards and other privileges. However, some OTAs do not let hoteliers do that by keeping guests’ contact details a secret.
Use the full potential of TravelLine Extranet features and your hotel website. Here is a list of efficient tools available to you for free:
Send email newsletters with unique special offers to your guests. You can always pull your base of guests that booked your rooms on the hotel website.
Improve guest loyalty by turning ordinary guests to return guests. Set discounts for repeat stays at your hotel. Benefit from the automatic feedback emails in TravelLine Extranet to give users a secret promo code for the next booking.
Offer perks to guests who book directly on your website. For example, indicate that when guests do so, they get things like free parking, welcome drinks, and discounts at a hotel restaurant or Spa. Learn how to do this in the instruction.
Set a special rate plan that will only be available for mobile users. Over 60% of travelers book rooms on mobile devices. This is why appealing booking conditions increase your website’s conversions and guests’ loyalty to your brand.
Sell extra services on the hotel website. This has the potential of increasing your Average Daily Rate (ADR).
During periods of high demand, you can witness that bookings from both OTAs and your official hotel website are on the rise. Do not miss the chance to fill in your rooms with more profitable bookings. Mind the 4P Rule: Product, Price, Promotion and Place. Prioritize the most profitable platform — your hotel website.
Our customer success team will be happy to help you will all the settings.