Hotels recognize the importance of increasing direct bookings as a top priority, and there are various tactics they can employ to do so, including offering user-friendly websites, commission-free booking engines and loyalty programs.
Direct booking incentives such as room upgrades and discounts can encourage guests to book directly. They can be displayed as click-to-book (CTAs) and pop-ups on your website.
1. Optimize Your Website
Your website serves as a virtual space to promote and showcase anything related to your short-term rental business. It can help increase direct bookings by featuring reviews from previous guests, offering special offers or discounts and prominently featuring your booking widget on different pages. In addition, local businesses or influencers could partner with you in order to offer packages or tours featuring your accommodation.
As part of your efforts to increase direct bookings through your website, the first step should be analyzing why visitors are leaving. This may be caused by issues with loading speed or messaging clarity on your site; cumbersome form fillings, pricing structure or any number of factors; using tools like heat maps can help identify and reduce these barriers to conversion.
Once you know why visitors are leaving your website, you can begin making strategic modifications that will address the pain points and enhance their customer journey. This could include increasing website speed or making sure it’s mobile-friendly so travellers can access it anytime from any location worldwide.
Make your website more appealing to prospective guests by including stunning images, minimizing text and clutter, and emphasizing your services on the homepage. Incentivize direct bookers by offering promotions such as “Book Direct and Save Up To 10%”, encouraging them to bypass online travel agents (OTAs) in favor of booking directly with you.
Last, email can also help drive traffic and promote your direct booking option. Running email campaigns properly and consistently will allow you to meet website traffic goals, introduce new offerings or discounts for existing guests, increase repeat bookings, and promote direct bookings via your website – increasing direct bookings through your website and expanding your short-term rental business. Furthermore, by using a channel manager that synchronizes rates and availability across distribution channels automatically and manually updates, manual updates can be reduced while increasing revenue maximization – Guesty provides one such free channel manager as an added help! To get started using Guesty’s free channel manager today and start taking direct bookings direct bookings through your website to expand short term rental business!
2. Build a Social Media Presence
One of the best ways to increase direct bookings is with a strong social media presence. This involves not only building an audience, but also posting engaging content that encourages viewers to share it and tag friends and followers – this will exponentially expand your reach!
Brand awareness campaigns are another effective means of expanding social media presence, and are an ideal way of reaching targeted audiences with measurable results and customizable budgets. Paid ads also give hotels an excellent way to promote services, amenities and packages they are offering at their hotel.
As well, other methods may help strengthen your social media presence, including guest reviews, short-form video and influencer campaigns. Just make sure that each strategy is tested and measured prior to choosing those which work best for your business.
Social media has become an essential part of every hotel’s marketing strategy and an excellent way to build trust with potential customers. Social media enables hoteliers to communicate in real-time with guests – quickly responding to inquiries, resolving issues, addressing feedback promptly – while simultaneously building lasting relationships that will lead to repeat bookings and referrals from guests.
To maximize the advantages of your social media strategy, it is important to set clear objectives and monitor performance regularly. For instance, if your goal is to increase LinkedIn engagement by 25% within six months, make sure that you check on progress every other week so that you can monitor if you’re on track or require adjustments.
Social media can be an effective tool in driving direct bookings for hotels, but the primary factor in garnering reservations remains your website. An engaging design that is user-friendly on both desktop and mobile browsers; high quality images; and captivating copy all play an integral role in turning visitors into bookers.
3. Create a Mobile-Friendly Website
As mobile devices continue to overtake desktop use, it is imperative for businesses to ensure that their website and content are mobile-friendly. Consumers tend to spend longer browsing websites that are responsive, smooth and simple for mobile browsing; furthermore they will likely share positive experiences they had with you on social media if their experience with you was positive!
An effective website is key to any successful direct booking strategy, and must be professional, mobile-friendly, user-friendly, with messaging targeted directly at prospective guests. While having pages that highlight the unique qualities or experiences of your property is fine, having too much content or pages may discourage guests from booking through your website and slow down page load times for both desktop and mobile users.
If your website already offers plenty of content, consider creating a blog to give visitors regular updates and fresh material that may convince them to book your property. Blog posts will demonstrate that your company takes its host responsibilities seriously while being proactive in marketing your business.
As most consumers rely on mobile devices to research hotels and make bookings, customers expect your website to load quickly and be easy to navigate on smartphones or tablets. You can test it using one of many tools such as Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test, MOZ’s Sprout or W3’s Mobile-Friendly Test to ensure it meets these expectations.
Mobile-responsive websites are essential for businesses of any kind, but hotel brands that rely heavily on direct bookings need them even more so. A well-designed and mobile optimized hotel website will increase direct bookings while simultaneously improving customer experiences and providing increased revenues.
One way to increase direct bookings for your hotel is by offering special discounts on its website. Discount promotions can help your hotel compete with online travel agencies (OTAs) while drawing new and returning guests in. Email marketing, social media or your hotel website should all be used as channels to promote these discounts; be sure to highlight what makes your hotel unique while showing how this offer benefits customers; be sure to emphasize how reserving early helps reduce costs! For maximum results use phrases like limited offer or early bird special to emphasize urgency when creating promotions for bookings – both can work wonders!
4. Offer Incentives
Incentive is an effective way to drive direct bookings via your website, whether that means offering discounted nightly rates or offering free nights after a certain number are booked. No matter how big or small, make sure your incentive is clearly communicated to guests and can easily be redeemed through your booking engine or website.
Remarketing campaigns offer another effective means of reaching past website visitors who may have forgotten about booking directly with your hotel, reminding them they can do so immediately. Retargeting can also serve as an opportunity to remind potential guests about you who may have forgotten.
One effective strategy for increasing direct bookings is providing guests with an unforgettable experience that cannot be found through OTA platforms. If your hotel is near a ski resort, highlight that you offer shuttle transportation and an apres-ski happy hour on your rooftop hot tub – these features can set your hotel apart and convince guests that booking direct with you will provide them with more rewarding service.
Encourage guests to book directly with you by offering incentives such as free Wi-Fi, parking or breakfast in bed. Furthermore, use marketing techniques like countdown timers to create an urgency and scarcity within your messaging, encouraging guests to book sooner in order to avoid being disappointed about missing out on an attractive room type or deal.
At your hotel or other POS locations, offer loyalty points that can be redeemed to motivate guests to book directly with your brand. Not only will this incentivize them but will also build brand loyalty.
Increased direct bookings may seem daunting at first, but with the proper approach it can be done. By optimizing your website, cultivating social media engagement and making mobile friendly changes, your direct booking numbers may begin to improve over time. Be sure to monitor results and use them for improvement whenever needed – even small changes add up over time, so don’t get disheartened if immediate results don’t show.