OTA Optimization: Best Ways to Boost Hotel Bookings
The hospitality industry is not left behind in this ever-evolving world where everything is technologically driven. We all know that the desire to increase profits has existed since immemorial. Additionally, an online presence helps increase this desire with feasible results to another pedestal.
Online travel agencies or OTAs are crucial in making this dream a reality. OTAs help hotels to connect with potential guests as a resourceful intermediary. In this techie world, businesses cannot survive alone without the help of their online presence. With the help of an all-around hotel marketing agency, online presence can be enhanced, which helps drive in more probable guests than the regular offline market.
As we all know, with increasing competition in the market, it becomes significant for all industries, let alone the hotel industry, to optimize their presence. Online travel agencies help a hotel to differentiate itself from the many prevalent hotels. This differentiation will help them stand out and make them a household name or, to say, a go-to place for any probable guest.
However, OTA alone will not help any hotel stand out if it is not made specifically to target the hotel's guests. Hence, we need to optimize our online travel agency and hotel relationships. Through various strategies suggested by hospitality marketing agencies, we can enhance the visibility of our hotel through our online presence, which will also affect our offline presence.
Let us explore these strategies in this comprehensive guide. This comprehensive guide will give you top tips and tricks that will help you as a hotel to stand out, grow, and increase your profits by bigger numbers than usual. All this will contribute to an enhanced booking performance as well. So, let’s drive in.
What is an OTA?
Before knowing various strategies to optimize your business, it becomes vital to understand the entire landscape surrounding online travel agencies. Apart from knowing that OTA stands for online travel agency, let us explore the entire field of online travel agencies as a whole.
An online travel agency is any website that will act as a search engine for a traveler. OTA helps probable guests connect with the hotel they wish to visit or explore digitally. The hotel and the guests are connected digitally and helped in choosing their plans and packages.
OTA not only deals with hotel bookings but also solves the problems of the guests related to flights, rental cars, and whatnot. The tie-up of a hospitality marketing agency with an online travel agency helps narrow the gap between guests and hotels even further. This digital presence will help you connect with your probable guests to another enhanced level.
With the rise of online marketplaces, a lot of traditions have changed. This rise in the online marketplace gave birth to a new concept of online bookings. Earlier, when one had no option to choose from or to say, was not aware of all the options, he or she had to stay in the same regular and boring hotel that he or she would otherwise never enter. However, online bookings have customized and tailored everything to a specific guest.
Due to tie-ups with the online hospitality marketing agency, hotels have made the entire booking system more visible, enhanced, and easier to explore. The hotel marketing agency allows the convergence of various businesses related to accommodations and various amenities and activities.
In this ever-evolving technological world, with the audience's changing psyche, guests want to stay in the best hotel at the most affordable price. Hotels need to adapt and enhance to these changing needs. When suggested by the hotel marketing agency, such changes are made further possible by the hotels.
Need of OTA Optimization
People do not want to spend much time comparing and contrasting various hotels from different sites. With more and more money coming into people’s wallets, time decreases proportionally. That is where online travel agencies enter the market. Like any other industry, the hospitality industry aims to increase its bookings, ratings, and brand image. Online travel agency bookings can rightly serve this purpose.
As advised by the hospitality marketing agencies, hotels can increase online travel agency bookings to remain more vital in business as per the need and demand of the specific hotel, according to their specific location, target audience, price, and activities and leisure time they offer.
On a bigger level, a hospitality marketing agency helps tie up an OTA with a hotel to make the hotel more visible to the customer. OTA helps in promotions, increasing a hotel's online presence and off-line trust as a brand in the marketplace. Hence, to increase or save and generate more and more hotel revenue, you aim to increase OTA bookings.
However, for online travel agencies, tying up with hotels is not a very easy affair. With a lot of options to choose from, one can easily optimize to a surface level. So, to drive more guests to your hotel at an affordable return on investment from a marketing standpoint, a hospitality marketing agency suggests ways to increase your online travel agency bookings for hotels.
Best Ways to Boost Hotel Bookings
- Optimizing pricing strategy across OTAs:
When it comes to pricing rooms on OTA sites, hotels need to take a flexible, data-driven approach if they want to maximize bookings. We can use high-tech revenue management tools to frequently adjust rates across the OTAs based on what's happening in your local market.
The software looks at things like the current demand and booking speed at your hotel, any events or seasonal changes that could affect demand, how your competitors are pricing and availability on the OTAs, how many rooms you have left to sell, and your target occupancy.
A hospitality marketing agency strategically helps to bump prices when demand spikes, like on weekends or during popular events when everyone wants a room. But also offer discounts when things are slower to entice people to book. Tweak pricing depending on how soon the stay is and how many rooms you have left - dropping rates on any last-minute openings.
Through the help of the hotel marketing agency, you can use your historical booking data and analytics to forecast demand and optimize pricing weeks or months when possible. Those dynamic pricing tools let you make quick, data-backed price changes across the OTAs instead of manual updates. But you still need people overseeing everything, fine-tuning those systems.
Most of all, pricing must align across the OTA sites and your direct booking website. This flexible, data-savvy approach to pricing helps hotels maximize revenue by responding quickly when conditions or demand change in their OTA sales channels.
2. Integrate OTA and direct channels:
To ensure a greater level of bookings, the hotels need to integrate the direct bookings site and the OTA site as a single entity for guests. This implies timely synchronization of availabilities and prices across all channels.
That’s when a room is booked on an OTA, the instant update of availability everywhere else is done. It automatically pushes any rate change in the hotel system to the OTAs as well as the website. This also eliminates such conflicts as undercutting the rates or overbooking the rooms. For the guest, regardless of whatever site they are searching or booking on the internet, they will get a simplified booking process with uniform prices and availability. And it is much easier on the hotel side as well when you compare it with manual inventory management across fragmented systems. Through centralized control of pricing and availability in one place from a hospitality marketing agency by automating syncing between the OTAs and the direct platforms, the hotels achieve an easy transition to whatever is necessary to enhance sales.
This integrated, customer-focused approach across all booking channels, both indirect and direct, is key to optimizing performance and bookings. Guests get an omnichannel experience that meets their needs. Hotels get simplicity and centralized management. It's a win-win for maximizing bookings across the board.
3. Bid strategically on OTAs:
For hotels bidding on OTAs, you need to get strategic with it if you want to maximize bookings. Actively change up your bids based on accurate data showing what's working. Increase your bids when demand is best, like weekends in peak season or when significant events are happening - you'll get more visibility with all those people looking to book. Also, bid higher on your star room types that bring in buyers, like suites with sweet views through the all-time advice of a hospitality marketing agency
But when things slow down, cut submissions to save on marketing money. Regularly look at the OTA analytics to see which sites, seasons, and room types give you the best time for your bid. Use these insights to tweak your bids for the best results at the right price. Make measured changes in chunks of 10-20%, no significant shifts.
Consistently refine based on the latest performance stats. Strategic bidding takes effort, but it gets you in front of the right people when demand is high and eases off when it's not. The key is constantly optimizing bids based on data showing where your bookings are coming from by following a hospitality marketing agency’s advice tailored to your needs and demands.
4. Build loyalty and email marketing:
Developing a robust loyalty program and email marketing strategy is vital for hotels to drive more direct bookings. A compelling loyalty program should offer exclusive perks, discounts, and upgrades to incentivize repeat visits and direct booking conversions. For example, members could get 10% off rates, late checkout, room upgrades, complimentary WiFi, points towards free nights, and other benefits not available to non-members.
A trusted hospitality marketing agency provides brilliant email campaigns to reach out to past guests with loyalty perks and special offers. Notably, segmented emails that are enhanced with personalized promotions aligned to stay history and preferences to fit in the offers also enable the customers to gauge theirs. The emails should feature only member rates, sale offers for the season, and the experiences on the property, as well as the vicinity of the place that is a destination feature.
Effective factors in email include creative subject lines, sending emails at the best time, mobile optimization, and testing different offers. The marketing can be done repeatedly as the collection for email is done during the booking process or the checkouts, and staff always make the decision to offer them news updates.
Content that is a valuable part of other ones, which includes local guides and property news, establishes relationships. The loyalty program incorporated with email maintains long-term engagement. Regular optimization forward based on openness, click, and booking rates enhance the performance of future campaigns. Organic guest relationships driven by the supportive energy of the hotel marketing agency are rooted in layered loyalty programs and targeted email marketing that inspire direct bookings that begin the experience of a lifetime.
5. Monitor and reply to OTA ratings:
Digital hotel reputation management requires actively monitoring reviews and quickly handling negative feedback, as OTA sites can positively influence hotels’ bookings. Daily assessment of OTA ratings and reviews shall enable swift actions to be taken. Any negative comments should be responded to courteously, informing that left out any aspect of service from lapses, etiquette to appreciate comments for improvement, and offered help to individuals finding service dissatisfactory.
Items raised in reviews create possible points for conclusive matters; if a conflict arises, it can be dealt with for future stays. Positive feedback should get thank you responses that showcase appreciation for the praise and encourage the delighted guest to make reservations directly for the opportunity to earn loyalty benefits. With the aid of monitor tools, determining queries, tracking, and showing responses for the known themes can be automated. However, personal responses are preferable if feasible.
Hospitality marketing agencies also assist in trend analysis, which unveils areas that need improvements on property or service. For this purpose, constant observation, immediate response, handling complaints, say thanks to contented guests are needed for positive branding. This fosters confidence among travelers looking at the OTA ratings while choosing the room and endorses solid reputation management across channels. Preliminary OTA review management implies the convenience of dealing with a future guest and increases the possibility of a booking.
6. Leverage Social Media Promotions and Contests to Drive Engagement
An exciting and fun prospect for new ways in which a hotel can interact with potential guests through social media is one. The hospitality marketing agency creates engaging content that can be used across social media channels such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter; hotels use the same to establish their unique personality and create long-term connections with their intended audience. Social media is an excellent channel for undertaking such creative promotions and holding contests that generate excitement and engagement that lead directly to bookings.
The following is where your audience is most active: identify your leading social media sites.; Among the promotion mechanisms for most hotels, Facebook and Instagram are the most influential. Do a bit of investigation to learn what types of content and contests appeal most to your audience.
Interactive contests such as photo challenges, captions, and trivia quizzes are influential caucuses. A simple and achievable technique is holding competitions that complement the upcoming big events or holidays- New Year’s Eve getaways or Mother’s Day brunch deals. Ask followers to tag friends, repost, answer simple questions, and participate to enter.
The promise of a free weekend stay or discounted vouchers for dining is likely to appeal to social audiences. The contest mechanics must be accessible, and the prizes must be irresistible. Promotions are capable of directly motivating bookings, such as “book 3 nights and take the fourth free” or “20% off of suites this weekend only”.
Social media gives you room to get creative with special seasonal offers like romance packages on Valentine's Day or family discounts during school holidays. No matter what type of contest or offer, prominently display calls-to-action to book directly on your website. This captures intent and drives immediate conversions from your social activities.
Track booking sources so you can measure the impact and optimize future promotions. The hospitality marketing agency’s visually stunning content also performs very well on social media. Run photo contests asking local photographers or guests to submit images highlighting your hotel's best features and amenities.
This user-generated content can then be re-shared across your social platforms. Or invite popular lifestyle influencers on a complimentary stay in exchange for promotional Instagram posts and Stories. Their authentic endorsements can boost credibility. The key is to engage social audiences by mixing up your content strategy.
Conclusion
Through this comprehensive guide, we tried to navigate through the complex world of hotel bookings and how you can increase them tremendously. To stay competitive and narrow down the hospitality industry, one has to optimize one's business, which can be quickly done through hotels and online travel agency bookings.
Hence, we explored this intersection of the hotel and related online travel agencies. We understood from the discussions that online travel agencies have emerged as a significant source of hotel bookings and revenue. Even after paying commissions, the increased presence is nothing in front of the small cost paid for listing and potential guest generation or increment.
It was also made clear to us that owing to the numerous options of various agencies and strategies in the market, optimization is the need of the hour. If a hotel does not optimize its relationship with online travel agencies, it remains a regular hotel in numerous other hotels. Grow My Bookings is a quality and trusted hospitality marketing agency that helps you with all your online travel agency and hotel relations needs.
Hotel marketing agencies like Grow My Bookings are your one-stop solution to growing or better managing your hotel revenue. It is not easy to make a marketing decision alone, so we do all the work, and you enjoy the profit.
So, these were all the tips, tricks, and solutions to all your hospitality industry problems. To grow more and more digitally in the hospitality industry marketplace, choose the right hospitality marketing agency that will help you grow your business tremendously.