The Battle against OTAs isn’t just fought at the traveler’s booking stage. In this highly competitive market, hotels much deliver exceptional service if they are to succeed.
OTAs are an integral part of selling hotel rooms and are not going away anytime soon.
However, the lack of data provided by OTAs to hotels makes is challenging to deliver a personalized guest experience that drives loyalty. Instead, hotels must look for ways to capitalize on opportunities throughout the guest’s stay.
Mobile check-in and self-service stations are a simple way to get started. Where possible, hotels should allow guests to tailor their preferences before check-in, and most certainly once they arrive on property.
Email and text messages help to create more touch points throughout the guest lifecycle, and can influence everything from positive online reviews to building guest loyalty.
A mobile PMS enables hotels to interact with guests on their own terms while pushing easy upsells and ancillary services via automation. Guest experiences cannot be isolated in a siloed operating system.
Today, consumers use email, SMS, iMessage, WhatsApp, and a host of other communication channels. A hotel needs to update their technology solutions to match these consumer preferences.
Like single image inventory for revenue management, hotels also need a single view of the guest journey for all their associates – from front desk employees to loyalty marketers to GMs or revenue managers.
As with revenue management, guest experience management needs to be present wherever the guest wants to engage.
Hotels that embrace the new mobile and cloud systems and provide the guests with what they want will be rewarded with additional revenues and increased direct market share from the OTAs.
At the end of the day, it’s not about “beating” the OTAs, but capitalizing on this referral source to drive more revenue and convince guests to book direct the next time.
In this eBook, learn 4 proven hacks for hotels to capitalize on OTAs:
- Capturing guest information on-Property
- Recouping Lost Revenue from OTA-Generated Bookings
- Creating Personalized Guest Experiences Online and OWNING the Guest’s Stay Experience
- Developing More Guest Touch Points via SMS
Get your free copy of the eBook from Stay-n-Touch
