Understanding How Travellers Discover Properties Through OTAs: Unlocking Your Guest Journey

Many Hotels & Villas rely on Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) to boost property sales. It is essential to see if we are effectively optimising our sales funnel, gathering data to enhance our discoverability by understanding the preferences of our guests.

Understanding the specific booking journey of clients who utilise OTAs may appear straightforward, but it is not. Observing the various search behaviours of my friends and family from different parts of the world using OTAs made me understand that most use different criteria that can overlap. Relying on assumptions without data can affect our ability to make informed decisions for improvement.

I highly recommend to provide a client form for guests booking via OTAs to track their booking journey. This allows us to refine your OTA strategy based on real data, rather than solely relying on increasing commission percentages to drive bookings.

Understanding guest preferences and search patterns can benefit both OTA and direct sales strategies, enabling you to optimise keywords and align your offerings with guest expectations.

Which specific Online Travel Platform did you use to find our property?

• Booking.com
• Expedia
• TripAdvisor
• Agoda
• You can add the other OTAs you want

Search criteria / filters (make sure they can click more than one so you can find what are the most mentioned factors)

• Mention the closest big city GLOBALLY known Eg : Galle, Kandy.
• Mention your specific city. Eg: Mirissa.
• Star category
• Eg: Beachfront
• KM from example city centre
• Review Score
• Facilities
• Price
• Property photos and descriptions
• Flexibility (e.g. free cancellation)

How was your experience navigating and using your chosen Online Travel Platform?

• Very easy and user-friendly
• Somewhat easy, but could be improved
• Difficult, encountered issues
• Did not use the OTA platform directly

Did you compare prices and availability across multiple Online Travel Platforms before booking?

• Yes
• No
• Not sure

How likely are you to book accommodation through an Online Travel Platform again in the future?

• Very likely
• Somewhat likely
• Neutral
• Somewhat unlikely
• Very unlikely

Would you consider booking directly through our property website or socials for future stays?

• Yes
• No
• Maybe

Did you know about us before searching on an Online Travel Platform?

• Yes
• No

If Yes ,how did you hear about us?

• Social Media (please specify)
• Search Engine (please specify)
• Word of Mouth
• Other (please specify)

Cheers!

Liswith Obinamuni

Boutique Villas Sales Consultant