We recently met with a hotel whose occupancy was comprised nearly 50% by OTA bookings. One out of every two guests was costing them at least 20% commission. Aside from the obvious hit to their RevPAR and issues maintaining a competitive ADR they were also missing out on building their most valuable asset: their guest history.
Unfortunately, this property is not entirely unique. Far too many hotels and resorts rely on the OTAs for far too great of their occupancy. Even the properties succeeding with in-house bookings could benefit by chipping away at their OTA percentage. Here are five ways you can make an impact on your RevPar, reduce costs, grow your database, and improve guest satisfaction. Implement these and we guarantee you’ll find your OTA percentage drop while occupancy grows!
#1: Data Mining
Rome was not built in a day, nor do we suggest you cut off the OTAs all at once. What we do suggest, however, is creating a data mining strategy to ensure that when a guest checks-in from an OTA you set yourself up to have that guest book direct in the future. Start by ensuring you are capturing your guest’s contact information, primarily email, at check-in. The more data you can associate with your guests’ the better. Your goal is that you never have a guest check-in and check-out still appearing as an “Expedia Booking.”
#2: Exclusive Benefits
At the end of the day your guest is going to make the decision that is best for them; therefore, the more value you can provide to your direct bookings the better. This not only reinforces the value to your current direct bookings, but also incentives your OTA bookings to make a better choice in the future. We have found the following very effective at driving direct bookings:
