Get the latest insights of Direct Bookings
Everyone knows that Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) and metasearch engines became critical to many overall hotel’s marketing strategy and make it hard to convince guests that they can find a better option elsewhere. So, how can marketers change this potential costumers’ behavior? That is what this article is going to focus on.
As OTAs usually do not allow hotels to offer cheapest deals, there are other ways to improve direct bookings such as special discounts, exclusive packaging deals and add-ons. Making sure that your hotel remain above OTAs can be difficult, but there a few tricks that you can use to ensure that you keep those direct bookings raising. Whatever you do, ensure you don’t give any excuse for guests going back to OTAs! Here are 3 ways to encourage guests to book directly:
Provide Special Incentives on the Website
There are a lot of targeted audiences, whether it’s family, leisure, group travel or business. Hotels must create exclusive packages for its public only available on its website such as spa packages, local events packages and romantic breaks. Another strategy could be giving specific incentives such as a promotion code, offer a room upgrade and a free room service on the website. In addition to that, discounted meals, free drinks, free parking and free breakfast are some examples of other types of benefits.
Triptease is an example of a stand alone Price Comparison Tool, it compares real time prices of your hotel and OTAs, and also shows your special discounts and benefits on the top. Other Price checking widgets are Travel Tripper and Paraty Tech, they have the same function of Triptease, however, if the lowest price does not correspond to your hotel’s website, these tools adjust the rates on a real-time basis! That’s amazing, isn’t it?
Start doing some retargeting Ads
Many visitors don’t book a room on the first contact with a hotel’s website. They would rather take their time, compare your pricing with other hotels and destinations and visit your site a few more times before completing that reservation. Help your potential guests remember you through retargeting, so that you’re sure they make the booking later!
One of the best and easiest ways to launch a retargeting campaign using Facebook’s Custom Audiences feature. For that, you’ll just need to install a code on your website called Facebook Pixel. With this installed on your site, the pixel will send information back to Facebook about which pages were viewed on your site by a specific visitor and you’ll be able to retarget these users on Facebook. For more information about using Facebook Ads to promote chatbots, please read our post Why you should use Facebook Ads to drive bookings through chatbots.
Use your Front Desk
If you want to increase direct bookings , ensure that your front desk engage with guests the right way. Guests need to be well informed about the recent offers, packages and deals, which are exclusive for direct bookings.
In addition, if you have a chatbot for requests during their stay, the welcoming phase could be a good opportunity to inform the customers about this helpful tool. HiJiffy is currently working with Marriott where the front desk provides a card within the keyholder advertising its chatbot, where guests can make any request during their stay. Post-stay you can re-engage with your guests with the aim to receive feedback of their stay or promoting your hotel.
NB: This is a viewpoint by Diana Jordão from HiJiffy. HiJiffy brings chat to the hospitality industry, enabling guests to effectively connect with Hotels through instant messaging apps.
