If, like most hotels, your ultimate goal is to maximise your revenue and fill up your empty rooms, then you’re probably publicising your name across a number of different channels and including them in online travel agent (OTA) listings such as Booking.com. However, these can be a double-edged sword. Although they can help you to avoid empty beds, they also take a hefty commission for each reservation you receive through them. And they don’t provide you with information about your guests that you could use for future marketing efforts.This is something increasingly being recognised by even the biggest brands.
Established names including Hilton are among the hotels attempting to claw back some of this business by aiming to generate more direct bookings and fewer that include a middle man. If they’re getting involved in the direct booking wars, why shouldn’t you? There are several ‘book direct’ plans you can put into place, so let’s take a look at just some of them.
1. Website optimisation and conversion incentives The first thing to do is make your website the best it can possibly be and to entice bookings by encouraging those lookers to get their credit cards out.Thankfully, it is much easier nowadays to have a good online booking engine for hotels on your website, which works wonders in encouraging click-throughs to stay on your pages rather than clicking back to somewhere else.
Another point is that you can put add-ons on your site that create a sense of urgency, including ‘special’ room packages and automatically updated information that shows how many other people are looking at the same rooms in real time.Putting calls to action in regular places through the pages, ensuring easy navigation through to the booking engine and writing landing pages that entice would-be guests with good copy are further methods of increasing ‘stickiness’ and diverting attention away from OTAs.
2. Search placement as a priority If you aren’t a big brand like Hilton, then would-be guests won’t be able to search for you by name and you must help them come to you directly using search. Indeed, most people begin their travel journeys with a Google search these days, which means getting higher up the rankings is a good way of encouraging direct bookings.To do this, encourage past guests to write reviews after they have stayed with you by sending them out a survey and an incentive. If you aren’t getting responses, make the survey just a couple of tick-boxes.
Again, content can really help you with organic search, so regularly update your site with interesting, relevant, problem-solving copy and place calls to action at the end of it.You might also want to consider short pay-per-click campaigns to help you when you have particular offers to promote, including package deals that help you overcome rate parity agreements and encourage direct booking.
3. Target audiences more closely You know you need to send out emails to your target audience, particularly guests who you’d like to see returning, but have you considered making them more personal? Blanket emails sent out to your entire list can be frustrating and may result in unsubscribes, but macro-targeting with even just one filter (such as couples or hen parties) can have a hugely positive impact in making people feel more valued. Even if you don’t have a huge budget at your disposal with which to market your hotel, you can still get in on the direct booking wars – and that should ultimately mean more money in your back pocket.
