On Monday morning, I decided that since I knew all about the high commissions that hotels are charged for bookings through online travel agents (OTAs), I would do the right thing and book direct for an upcoming Easter weekend break.
Armed with prices from Booking.com, other online booking platforms, and the hotel’s competitors, I sent them an email. Imagine my surprise when they quoted me 56% more than the Booking.com price!
A few days later I had a similar experience with a serviced apartment provider, this time ending up with four different prices (sourced from their website, their OTA listing, a phone conversation and an email conversation) for the same apartment.
There could be a few possible reasons for these inconsistencies:
- Front of house staff may not be aware of online prices
- There may be hidden costs that are not being included in prices displayed on their websites and OTA listings.
- Management may not realise that potential guests have already researched prices online and feel the need to charge more when potential guests book directly to make up for losses due to high OTA commissions.
What it boils down to is this: either these hotels are not aware of what their prices are online, or they think that their prospective guests aren’t.
Ignorance is no longer bliss
With 45% of travellers searching online to compare deals, and the average searcher visiting 38 websites to find the best deal, neither of these situations are ideal.
If you are looking to pay less in commissions, you’ll be interested to know that your prospective guests do actually prefer to book direct, provided they are getting a fair price. In one controlled experiment, Koddi found that:
- More than half their participants (65%) chose to book direct rather than through an OTA when the price was the same.
- Even when it was 10% more expensive, 51% of travellers still rather choose to book direct than through an OTA.
The reason for this, according to Triptease, is that guests “believe they will get better treatment, better customer service, and they will be more likely to get room upgrades and other freebies” (which are, in fact, great ways to encourage direct bookings) if they book with hotels directly. But, more than pricing, what influences guests’ decisions on where to book is trust. Whether the study’s participants booked through hotels directly or through OTAs, they said it was because they trusted that vendor. This can work in your favour – as an individual hotel brand providing accommodation and comfort, it is far easier to build trust than as a big online travel agency that guests will never see or interact with in person.
Being transparent about your pricing is one way to build trust — not only will guests be more likely to book direct, but they will also feel better about doing so, and hopefully turn into repeat bookings or loyal brand evangelists.
