With the easing of global restrictions surrounding the pandemic, things are again starting to look bright for the travel industry.
NB: This is an article from RateGain
Newer travel corridors are opening and general demand for hotels is picking up. Such being the case, it is essential for hoteliers to cash in on this trend and unlock newer revenue streams and opportunities. All this however is easier said than done right? Manually scouring through large amounts of data is not only highly inefficient, but futile as well. So, what can we do to improve hotel visibility and sales?
Subscribe to our weekly newsletter and stay up to date
Think Smart, Act Sharp and Become a Genius
Revenue Managers and Marketers would know that driving up sales considerably (and subsequently the revenues) is not an easy task. Even with your rate distribution and inventory management sorted by means of a Smart Distribution hotel channel manager, you would need an additional thrust to do the trick. Enter Genius – Booking.com’s targeted marketing program is designed to drive incremental growth and differentiate you from your competition.
In a few simple steps, hotels can join the Genius partner program provided by Booking.com, which immediately puts them in the spotlight through the OTA’s user interface with a blue Genius badge attached to the property cards in the search results. Additionally, hotel partners on Genius receive an automated ranking boost whenever prospective customers search for hotels with the same or similar parameters as yours.
This essentially eases the load off your marketing teams to constantly come up with innovative ideas and from providing unsustainable discounts, discarding it in favor of providing additional perks to frequent travelers. Through Booking.com, you are assured of access to a sizeable chunk of your target market, and with the added advantage of Genius, you could greatly enhance your visibility to this target market while staying on top of your competition.
Available data from currently onboarded partner hotels on the Genius program shows a massive improvement of up to 45% in terms of overall bookings and up to 40% more revenue generation for the partner hotel.
Growing with Genius
Apart from the instant visibility and boost in rankings, Genius partner hotels are more likely to be chosen by the Genius members registered on the Booking.com OTA portal. This is facilitated using a special sorting filter in the search options as well as on the search results pane. As and when Genius members look for a property that is a Genius partner, your property will stand out, thus increasing the chances of the property getting booked. Throw in a few incentives where you can, and the chances of customer conversion go further up a notch.
But Genius is not solely about visibility. Additional features are being constantly explored and tested to help improve customer awareness about the Genius loyalty program, thus driving traffic to Genius partner hotels.
Genius is no doubt a great marketing tool to drive sales and occupancy. But marketing alone can’t do the trick. How do you manage inventory, benchmark yourself against competitors and discover sources of demand to accurately price your offering? This is where premium Smart Distribution Hotel Channel Manager Software like RezGain can help.
This helps hoteliers to focus on providing their customers a stellar experience at the property, rather than spend hours at a desk trying to analyze the data.
