Benchmarking is an essential action in order to understand how effective your hotel strategy is, and how it performs compared to the market and competition.
NB: This is an article from The Hotels Network, one of our Expert Partners
However, knowing which areas to analyze and how to take actions based on these insights is not always an easy task. That’s why at THN we are starting a series of case studies showing how hotels are effectively taking their BenchDirect insights into action, and boosting their direct channel performance. But before diving in, you should familiarize yourself with BenchDirect. Introducing THN’s latest product innovation: BenchDirect, the first benchmarking platform for the hotel’s direct channel.
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With a full suite of metrics for the direct sales channel, hoteliers can now analyze the entire booking funnel and compare their performance to the market and competition to see exactly where they are underperforming or outperforming to identify opportunities for growth. Not to mention, BenchDirect is free.
Charlottehaven: the case study
Charlottehaven is a beautiful, architect-designed house that combines hotel apartments, meeting and conference rooms, a café as well as a fitness and health club under the same roof. This hotel has become a clear example on how to take hotel benchmarking insights into action. Let’s see why…
What data did Charlotteheaven analyze?
Charlotteheaven decided to benchmark the following direct channel metrics available in BenchDirect:
- Total Conversion. The hotel analyzed this KPI to have a better understanding on how effective they were in terms of converting website visits into direct reservations.
- Booking Engine (BE) to Booking Conversion. The hotel took a deeper dive into this key metric to learn how well they were performing in terms of generating direct reservations out of the booking engine traffic.
- Revenue per BE. The hotel used this figure to check how well they were performing when it comes to revenue generated per direct booking.
After analyzing the metrics with BenchDirect and reviewing their strategy on the week from August 29 to September 5, the following was spotted:
- Total Conversion was below Destination and THN Network compset
- BE to Booking Conversion was slightly higher than Destination and THN Network compset
- Revenue per BE Visitor was significantly greater than Destination and THN Network compset
- 2021 weekday reservations were significantly reduced compared to the normal amount
What opportunities did Charlotteheaven spot?
These points uncovered a clear opportunity to increase Total Conversion while encouraging reservations on weekdays. What’s more, despite outperforming in terms of BE to Booking Conversion and Revenue per BE Visitor, the property wanted to exploit this advantage and further outperform competition.
What actions did Charlotteheaven take?
The hotel was looking for a tactic to retain people on the hotel website, and encourage weekday reservations. Thus, Charlotteheaven crafted a clever Exit message combining THN’s Email Capture tool and the one-click promocode feature. Displayed to users who were about to abandon the booking engine, the message was granting new newsletter subscribers a 30% discount on 2021 weekday reservations.
With this initiative, the hotel was aiming to build an engaged database of potential guests at the same while encouraging immediate bookings, as this offer was only valid during a week – from 5 to 12 September 2021.
Layer that offers promotion for limited time
How did Charlotteheaven track the message performance?
With the BenchDirect platform, hoteliers are able to compare different timeframes of the performance of a direct channel metric.
How did Charlotteheaven’s campaign perform?
The effectiveness of this campaign was clearly noticeable. In just a matter of 1 week (September 5th – 12th), the property achieved the following results…
- The hotel reached an overall conversion rate above average, growing by 71.9%
Total Conversion for Charlottehaven
2. The hotel’s revenue per BE visitor increased by 12.8%
BE to Booking for Charlottehaven
3. The hotel’s BE to booking conversion outperformed the compsets, increasing by 39%
Revenue per BE Visitor for Charlottehaven
4. The growth in website conversion – 71.9% was larger than the increase in demand (website visitors who search ), indicating the effectiveness of the campaign. The hotel didn’t need to invest in traffic acquisition in order to boost reservations.
Visitors Who Search for Charlottehaven
5. 40+ new newsletter subscribers were generated
BenchDirect is the first benchmarking platform specifically for your hotel’s direct channel that provides real-time insights for you to understand your hotel’s direct channel performance compared to the market and competition.
Here is your opportunity to sign up your hotel to BenchDirect, and it’s for free! Request your free account today to join the 12,000+ hotels worldwide who are already benchdirecting…
