According to Phocuswright, 72% of travel shoppers in the US use Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) to shop for hotels. That’s a lot of people! But, the good news is, not all of them will book through a third-party channel. There are things you can do to convince OTA shoppers to book direct instead.
Up to 60% of travel shoppers who book through an OTA site will visit your hotel website first, according to Triptease. They’re coming to learn more about your property, the local area, view more images, and ultimately decide if it all meets their needs. And that’s your moment to convince a travel shopper to book direct. In this article, we suggest some strategies for how to do this on your website, to help drive more direct bookings and reduce your OTA commissions.
Capture Contact Information
The first thing is to try and capture contact information for your website visitors – the most important being their email address. This will allow you to continue a dialogue with them, promote special offers, and send other marketing messages to convince them to book.
One of the easiest ways to gather email addresses is to run a contest. It doesn’t have to be big or expensive. The prize could be a gift certificate for your hotel or on-site amenities, a free room upgrade, or passes to a nearby local attraction. The good thing about prizes like these is that they require the winner to book a stay to redeem them.
Another way to capture email addresses is to invite travel shoppers to subscribe to your newsletter. Just ensure that your newsletters contains valuable content that subscribers will want to receive, like exclusive special offers, details on upcoming events, and useful tips for the local area.
