How do I reduce my reliance on OTAs such as Booking.com
During these dark days of COVID-19 one of the biggest issues has been hotels having issues with OTAs, due to the number of cancellations. This has led a lot of owners and GMs to question the role of OTAs versus getting those bookings direct.
Growing direct bookings is achievable for all hotels and is more cost effective. We have listed the top 3 ways to do this below:
1. Offer good incentives for booking direct
When we say ‘good’, we don’t mean free wi-fi or a bottle of water. This has to be something tangible that adds value to customer. We recommend going all out with later checkout, free upgrade plus a food and beverage voucher (this also has up-sell value). If you can add a bottle of bubbly in the room or free drink on arrival, all the better.
2. Run brand ad campaigns on Google & Bing
A lot of (most) hotels don’t do this and have allowed Booking.com and friends to hoover up revenue for years. The good news is that these ads can be set up quickly and usually attract bookings between 7% & 10% commission, a huge saving on the usual 15% OTA commission. Why wouldn’t you run them?
3. Monitor your rates
If you allow OTAs to display a cheaper rate than you, then you will lose the sale in most cases. There are a number of tools you can use to monitor this. Drop us an email and we can help set this up. Manual checks also work well and can unearth some sneaky third parties using cheaper rates.
Summary
Have rate parity, better booking incentives and then shout about it through ad campaigns.
Get in touch with us if you need more advice including Google & Bing voucher codes to get you campaigns started.
This advice was supplied by Big Flavour
