Getting people to book directly with a hotel is very good news for all sorts of reasons. While any booking means a room filled, revenue gained, and a customer who may also wish to purchase further goods and services, the fact is that indirect booking means lots of commission has to be paid. Thats great news for the agent making the sale, but not for the hotel, for whom revenues are eroded by the payments they have to make.
For the hotel or chain, the key is two fold. Firstly, it must find a better way of marketing to ensure it does not have to rely on the work of agents who do all the leg-work and then get the rake-off. Secondly, there needs to be a range of easy ways for customers to make direct bookings with a hotel. Listing a few ways in which hotels can enhance their direct booking facilities in an article for Tnooz, vice president for marketing at Cloudbeds, Brandon Dennis, put mobile bookings top of the list.
He stated: “I’m embarrassed bringing this up. This should be a no-brainer by now. Time and time again I see hotel websites with booking engines that are not optimised for mobile devices. To add insult to injury, some of them charge commissions!”He backed up this statement by noting that a study by TripBarometer in 2014 showed failure in this area is widespread, with only 45 per cent of hotels accepting mobile bookings. The opportunity is an obvious one, he observed, and any hotel without a facility for this kind of booking should switch to one as soon as possible.
The billboard effect is another top tip. Describing this as a “counter-intuitive” step, Mr Dennis said hotels that seek a listing with an online travel agency (OTA) can actually get more direct bookings. The reason is that the listing includes their websites and while the customer may have the option of an indirect booking, they will often look at the hotels own website and make a direct booking. The reason, when one thinks about it, should be obvious: the hotels own website is likely to be the best source of information and thus those who are curious about the establishment will log onto it to find out more information and perhaps make enquiries. Making special offers is another great way forward. Just as high street stores will have special offers and loss-leaders to draw custom, so it is possible to incentivise guests to book directly by giving them special deals, such as a lower prices or free drinks.
Mr Dennis noted many OTAs do not list a hotels special offers and lowest prices as that would incentivise people to make such direct bookings. However, he noted, by using social media and sending emails directly to customers, there are other ways of communicating the benefits that can be enjoyed by those booking directly. This, of course, means making the most of that segment of your potential customer base who have stayed in your hotel before. You can give them an extra reason to come back. Indeed, you can take this further by launching a loyalty scheme and getting existing customers to join.
A successful content marketing strategy will also drive traffic to the site and therefore increase direct bookings. A good SEO strategy will ensure search engines steer plenty of people your way as your hotel is ranked highly in searches thanks to its use of effective keywording, both short and long-tail. Content marketing can also help garner more email addresses, as items such as local tourism guides or photographic montages of your area can be made available to those who email in. Known as a content gate, it creates a great opening for you to send further information to customers. An advantage of this is that if there is a choice of items they can seek, that will provide information that can be used to send tailored offers. For example, should there be a music festival nearby for which you produce a guide, those emailing in response can then be targeted when there are similar events taking place locally in future. Other tips include having a user-friendly website. Among the crucial elements of this are high-quality photos and a highly visible call-to-action.
Emphasising the importance of getting the site right, Mr Dennis noted: “It is not an art canvas for playing music you like or showing off your favorite animated gifs. Put thought into the layout of your website, and the content you publish there. He concluded by noting that implementing all these measures requires time and effort. However, Mr Dennis added, there is “a huge window open for those willing to put in the work” and that means your hotel could be one that gains great benefits from being able to offer direct bookings and increasingly cut out the commission-grabbing middle man.
