In the process of making a reservation via the official website – Direct Booking – the clients have to go through many steps to finalize their booking. Hotel managers’ increasing efforts, particularly with regards to the online promotion of their official website via Google Hotel Ads, can prove to be completely useless if the website does not have the necessary assets to convert a client’s visit into a reservation. We witness today a real rush towards the highest ROI, synonymous with a profitable investment. In order to succeed, however, hotel managers must adopt certain essential practices that can allow them to achieve this goal.
A good quality official website, synonymous with Direct Booking
The progressively intense competition being waged by Hotel managers in all markets leaves them little room for error, and they must at all times be more inventive by increasing their creativity in order to attract a clientele. For this reason, the hotel’s official website is the showcase of the establishment, and it must be able to convey the personality that its leaders want to attribute to it.
A beautiful design, clear and useful information, reliable and intuitive technology, as well as competitive pricing are all assets that can make the difference in the conclusion of a Direct Booking.
According to a study conducted by SaleCycle in 2016, 37% of individuals who were surveyed reported that they quit the booking process due to a pricing problem, and 9% quit due to a technical issue. This represents a significant loss for an establishment’s direct channels of sales.
Added-values, a bait of choice
For hotel managers, the advantage of having an official website is that they can use it to promote exclusive offers of varying nature, which allows them to stand out from their distributors. Indeed, these offers play an important role in the booking process, and can tip the scale in favor of finalizing a reservation. The proposed offers must be well displayed on the website, but above all they must be appealing enough to get the client’s attention. They must be exclusive, while also being perceived by the client as having a certain value, in order to avoid a rejection effect in the case of a non-adapted or ridiculously low offer.
Booking via mobile, a niche to develop
The growth of bookings made via mobile devices has progressed exponentially over the last couple of years. According to a study by Criteo, 15% of reservations across the world were done via mobile in 2017, with an average annual growth rate of 15% over the last 3 years. These indicators prove that this tendency will likely be maintained, thus giving hotel managers a new, still unsaturated space where they can garner Direct Bookings. By offering an intuitive, and reliable mobile version of their website, hotel managers could reduce the rate at which clients quit the booking process, and can consequently derive significant benefits.
The reduction of Booking Abandonment remains a major challenge for Hotel managers. Thanks to its products Booking WebSite and Price Checker from the Rate match, Hotel Intelligence offers a complete product that includes a high-quality website, the latest generation comparative pricing tool with screenshots of distributors, and traveler reviews, which minimizes the risks of a client leaving and increases the chances of the reservation process leading to a Direct Booking.
