9 Habits of Hotels with good Direct Booking Business
The
Owner/Manager has a passionate desire for direct bookings.
Over the
years we have generated Checklists and Self-Assessment Forms and even
participated in staff training to educate people how to drive direct bookings,
but many of these initiatives simply run into the sand. What we have noticed
over the last 10 years is hotels that get the most direct bookings are the ones
that are owned or managed by someone who has a passion or strong desire to
driving direct bookings.
They invest
time and effort in their own marketing.
Sales and
marketing does not seem to come easy to the Hotel Industry. Into this gap comes
the OTA's who will happily do this for you, but at a cost. The choice is
simple; Either do your own marketing or pay someone else (the OTA's) to do it.
They give
inventory to OTA's only when they need them
Why sell
through 3rd parties when you can sell the rooms yourself at drastically reduced
commission ie on Busy weekends and Bank Holidays.
They offer
best value through their own website.
Rate Parity or 'price fixing' is illegal
in France and Germany and under challenge in other jurisdictions, freeing
hotels to sell cheaper through their own website if they wish.
They offer
incentives to Book Direct.
ie Free
Breakfast, Free Wifi, Free late Checkouts etc.
They
advertise 'Book Direct' everywhere in their hotel.
ie
'Pull-ups' in the reception, Notices on the check-in desk, messages on
Reception TV screens, marketing literature in the rooms, messages on their
breakfast menus etc etc
They invest
in Google Adwords.
Search for
your hotel name on Google right now. You will find that your hotel is lucky to
be listed number 3 or 4, your potential customers being diverted by companies
(normally OTA's) bidding on your property name. Unless you have unlimited money
to pay OTA costs, you have to compete with these companies by having your own
Adwords Campaigns.
They have a
TripAdvisor 'Business Listing'
We hear
estimates that 80% of New customers to your hotel will check you out on
TripAdvisor first. So utilise this key gateway by ensuring that you have on
your TripAdvisor Listing all your contact details ie Phone Number, Website
Address, E Mail along with some sort of offer to get the customer to come
direct to you.
They use
FaceBook Paid Marketing
We would
subscribe to the view that Social Media can be over-hyped in the Hotel
Industry, especially for properties that only really have rooms to offer.
However one platform that stands out for its ability to generate targeted
databases is FaceBook. For example, where else could you go to get a database
of 'customers within a 100 miles radius of Heathrow Airport that have an
interest in Golf' ?