Your guests have many ways of booking directly with you – rate matching, creating value-for-money promotions and offering exclusive benefits can all increase direct bookings and drive revenue for you! A hotel booking engine is also an effective tool. There are many strategies available to encourage guests to book directly.
One effective strategy to do so is by offering rate comparison tools on your website that show travelers they’re receiving better deals when booking directly with you.
1. Make it easy for guests to book
Your hotel website should offer an engaging online booking experience by providing relevant content, incentives and a smooth checkout process. However, website design and development is an ongoing effort that requires continuous maintenance to remain optimised for direct bookings.
Utilizing a responsive, mobile-friendly website design will attract travellers on all devices, increasing conversion and search engine optimization (SEO). Make your site stand out with high-quality photos optimized for the web that load quickly – the goal being creating visual representations that allow guests to visualize themselves curling up in bed, being pampered, or enjoying breakfast in your hotel.
An effective way to increase direct bookings at your hotel website is by offering exclusive rates, loyalty programs, and packages only available there. These could include discounted rates, complimentary services or added-value add-ons such as late check-out or free Wi-Fi access; their purpose being to create urgency so travellers who desire your rooms don’t get distracted by other options available elsewhere.
Rate comparison tools can also provide travellers with a powerful incentive. By showing guests your room prices alongside those from online travel agents (OTAs), rate comparison tools allow guests to easily see all available booking options and enable your property to position itself competitively and increase its average daily rate.
Also to help increase direct bookings is by creating an appealing and user-friendly website that clearly displays rates and availability as well as offering direct booking benefits. In addition, using data gathered from guests and visitors to send tailored communications and promotions helps build brand trust while encouraging more bookings.
Not surprisingly, even when offering direct booking incentives on your website, some guests may abandon their reservation halfway through due to factors like long checkout time or unexpected fees. To reduce this issue, implementing a “Reservation Abandonment Campaign” using information collected about guests to send targeted reminders and special offers via email could help.
2. Make it easy for you to manage your inventory
Effective inventory management requires keeping an eye on both availability, rates, and promotions at any given hotel. A hotel’s pricing intelligence should be capable of identifying market trends and demand fluctuations in real time, then adjust rates to maximize revenue while automatically propagating changes across all booking channels and updating availability as changes take effect.
Managers should also implement an inventory regulation system. This will notify staff when product inventory drops below certain levels, such as towels, and prompt them to contact their supplier and request more products – helping ensure consistent quality levels throughout their inventory, thereby decreasing unsold room nights.
Hotel websites should also use direct bookings to encourage guests to book directly, reducing OTA commission costs and helping prevent overbooking situations. Incentives like discounted rates or complimentary amenities may help encourage this strategy.
Hotels must implement a guest satisfaction monitoring system that alerts them of any problems with the reservation process, so they can resolve these promptly and increase guest satisfaction levels.
Effective hotel inventory management is key to maintaining competitive edge and increasing revenue. By making sure rooms sell at the right price, hotels can maximize revenue generation while meeting their business goals.
Promoting direct bookings and avoiding overbooking situations are also ways that hotels can ensure their guests have an optimal experience, leading to greater customer satisfaction and increasing brand loyalty.
Hotels looking to effectively manage hotel inventory should use their booking engine, revenue management software and channel manager in combination with guest satisfaction monitoring systems to optimize distribution and pricing strategies and reach goals by selling enough rooms at optimal pricing points and meeting targets. Monitoring demand trends through RMS or channel managers allows hotels to reallocate inventory as needed – effectively managing, promoting and reallocating inventory instantly.
3. Make it easy for guests to find your hotel
When guests visit your website, they want to feel like they’ve found what they need without much of an effort on their part. Optimizing it with clear navigation bars, clear CTAs and an intuitive layout are among the many ways that will ensure this happens smoothly for guests. Utilizing a world-class web design tool integrated with hotel booking engines may also help drive more direct bookings from direct channels without constantly having to update third party channels like OTAs.
Making sure that your hotel is clearly visible in Google search results can also help. A free listing on Google Business Profile allows you to share rates and availability information with potential guests while simultaneously promoting your own website. Google ranks ads based on an auction process which considers partner bids and quality (such as relevance to user searches).
Start by claiming your Business Profile and matching its details to those found on your booking engine, making it easier for Google to match up travellers with the relevant hotel rates. Upload hotel rates via API or with connectivity partner before managing them via the Ads Manager.
Amaze your guests before their stay is the key to keeping them coming back for more. Encourage guests to share their experience at your hotel through social media links, and highlight pictures of rooms and the local area in a beautiful photo gallery. Furthermore, add live feeds from guest review sites so that potential visitors can see first-hand the high level of service you provide.
Your hotel website could feature an eye-catching popover when visitors are about to exit, providing the ideal opportunity to highlight direct booking incentives or address barriers that caused them to abandon it.
No matter who your target clientele is – older clientele or younger, tech-savvy guests – effective communication is of utmost importance for any hotel. Offering email, social media, and SMS options to guests allows your staff to save time while giving guests the freedom to interact with your hotel in ways most suitable to them.
4. Make it easy for guests to book online
As more travellers opt to book their hotel stays online, it’s increasingly important that the booking process runs as smoothly as possible for guests. They don’t want to have to call your front desk or wait for you to respond via email; they want a smooth booking experience where they can quickly complete it and look forward to their trip without speaking with any human being.
One way of accomplishing this goal is by making sure your website contains clearly-stated calls-to-action (CTAs) that guide users naturally through the booking process. Furthermore, flexible date searching should allow guests to search availability that fits with their particular dates and needs; this enables guests to view multiple options that can help them select which room type(s) or amenities(s) they would like booked.
Finally, make sure your website displays clear pricing with all applicable fees or charges clearly listed. This will build trust among potential guests and prevent them from being surprised with unexpected charges at checkout time. It may also be worthwhile highlighting best price guarantees so travellers opt directly for your service rather than booking through third-party OTAs.
Create high-quality content that ties back into your branding and key messaging for maximum effect. Doing this will establish you as an authority source while simultaneously improving SEO rankings to attract more organic traffic to your site.
Once you can attract new guests, the focus can shift towards cultivating them by employing tools like CRM and email marketing to keep them engaged with your brand – which will hopefully result in repeat bookings – which is one of the most efficient ways of increasing revenue.
An effective hotel website is critical for turning visitors into guests, reducing reliance on third-party OTAs and increasing profit margins per booking. Furthermore, it provides cost-effective marketing opportunities by reaching and engaging potential guests – an integral component of growing any business.