Leverage Hotel Revenue with Direct Booking Strategy

In today’s digital world, it is evident that hotels heavily rely upon third-party websites like OTAs and search engines to drive bookings, which generates considerable portion of their revenue, which comes with 20% of the cost of the sale or even higher. Although, hotels can still get more booking by transforming their websites to cater to more elaborate bookings and incentivizing customers to book directly on their websites.

To increase direct sales at your hotel website there are multiple ways, out of all, website content plays a significant role. It gives your brand a good reputation, and customer feels a positive association with your brand. With right content, along with other changes overtime one can clearly see growth and improvement in bookings. Expecting overnight success only leads to disappointment. Gradually, you can reduce dependence on OTA’s, Metasearch, and other third-party commission charging sources.

In this modern world, high-definition images of your property and regularly updating your website must be priority. Understand that simply having a website is not sufficient, your website must have a efficient booking engine, allowing your guests to book using your website directly.

Mobile devices constitute a substantial part of travel bookings and searches. Research shows that there is a 110% increase in conversion rates when website are optimized for mobile. Hence, making sure that your hotel website is apt to the mobile friendly mode. The objective is to convert people visiting your website into paying customers.

On your landing page, a call-to-action (CTA) button is a must to have in order to increasing your bookings. To guide users towards your conversion goal, button should be striking and colourful, and it will make a difference. Every page of your website must be convincing enough to persuade your visitors, to click on CTA. Making sure, your site is accessible through all devices, such as laptops, desktops, tablets, and phones is a game changer. Google, Yahoo, and other search engines are usually the platforms guests use, so it is crucial to be present in all of these. To do that, search engine optimization of your website is necessary. Research shows, that people abandon bookings through mobile devices due to slow loading time. Constantly check your website's loading speed to avoid such a negative experience from people visiting your site.

Incentivize bookings done directly through your website, through perks and other offers will make substantial contributions to your customer experience and will help in long term. Along with a compelling email marketing campaign containing offers and discounts can effectively re-engage past customers and increase probability for new travels to book directly. Most of the hotel groups have customer loyalty program, leveraging from past guest data is also a great addition to your booking potential. Many travelers are attracted to various loyalty programs, and collaborating with local and international loyalty groups can also help your book direct strategy. Hotels can simply have one booking category as “members only” rate.

Using the power of social media is vita in establishing your brand and building relationships. Channels on social media are excellent mediums to market your hotel, dominate search results, and direct social media traffic back to your hotel. As we are all aware that travellers book their stay after skimming through multiple data, information and offers. Hotel website should ensure sure to highlight guest reviews. As these reviews will make the guests aware of your past guest experiences and hotel reputation.?

Using guest profiles to your advantage can help in creating “WOW” experiences, as they may contain personal information such as anniversaries, birthdays, and special requests.?

Deals or special discounts can be activated and?personalized through this data. These deals will establish customer loyalty and stimulate repeat visits and direct bookings.

Most importantly, monitoring your property listings on OTAs and directories and respond to feedback and reviews with the utmost respect. Gratifying comments and responses improve the guest's perception of your brand. Hotel can set up free Google Alerts to notify or email whenever someone mentions your hotel will be very efficient on your part to monitor response and feedback.

Reducing reliance on OTAs while increasing direct booking will improve the bottom line for your property. Having said that, always remember that the method that brings in the most value and low costs to acquire will always be the best mode of reservation at the end of the day. While OTA’s are best for short term business, company website will help in building loyalty and long term success. While making decision for different ways of driving in bookings, evaluate the costs incurred and the value they bring in. While OTA’s give choices, price comparison, deals and convenience and ease of use to the travellers. Hotels have to pay a commission, burden with customer service issues, cancellation rules, potential loss of business to competitors, and loss of control.?

One could postulate, that being mindful of all the factors, and thorough consideration is necessary to increasing direct hotel booking. With right resources, and strategy merge into current booking trends, which will pay off in the future.

The author of the article is GAGANDEEP SINGH , the CEO of Purple & Pink Digital Marketing Pvt Ltd