LanguageNo matter where in the world people are planning their trip, one of the first places they’ll look for their hotels is online travel agencies. This is one of the top reasons why the online travel agency is now thriving. However, the negative effect of this trend on your business is that while you do get paid if the travel agency’s customers come to your hotel, you are not able to take the full benefit. You as a hotel owner are not only forced to book your rooms for less, but don’t even get to make the impact that you can.
Fortunately, there is a solution. So if you are a hotel owner who is tired of travel agencies taking over your business, here are a couple of tips which will help you get out of the situation.
Improve Your Website
One of the biggest mistakes the hotels make is to have a website that is unbearable to look at and even more difficult to browse. Remember, this is the digital age and if your website is not up-to date, your business will be going nowhere. Other than this, you must also focus on your marketing because unless you are advertised properly, people will not know that you exist or that your hotel is worth looking over.
Respond Quickly
Whether it is your call service, social media pages or email, you must make sure that you respond quickly to your customers and their queries. If you are using the social media or email, make sure you reply in no less than a day. On the other hand, if you get a call from an interested customer, make sure you respond immediately because some people hope to make deals directly with the hotel and this is the best possible option for you.
Invest in Internet Marketing Activities
Internet marketing strategies like SEO, Adwords, and Meta Search Marketing should be high on your priority list. Because most things that happen today are digital, it is important that your online marketing techniques are also up-to-date. This is why it is important that you look at professionals like BookLogic. This are the only experts that won’t just help you convert your traffic into customers, but will also highlight your page on Google and other search engines so everyone knows who you are.
Offer Deals and Packages
Have you ever wondered why so many people opt for these online travel agencies instead of contacting an actual hotel? The reason is simple; these agencies offer discounted rates and are ready to offer custom packages according of the need of the customers. So, if you too want to attract traffic and invite in your own customers, ensure that you have plenty of deals and packages that vary in prices as well as the services being offered. Remember that the more you publicize these packages, the more your chances of being found and booked.
Invest in Partnerships
Travel agencies don’t just offer great hotels where the customers can stay but also provide transport and other options. In short, these agencies offer an all-in-one place where you don’t have to worry about making your own arrangements in an unknown country. So if you want to beat these agencies, you too must start to invest in partnerships with travel and transport companies that can guide your customers throughout the trip. If possible, make sure your hotel also provide tours or other activities that the tourists can enjoy.
Invest in a High-Conversion Booking Engines
One of the best things which you can do so your hotel can beat online agencies is to invest in a quality booking engines. However, when thinking about integrating such an engine into your website for high conversion, you must make sure that the company has a proven track record like BookLogic. These are the type of experts that deliver actual results and if they are telling you that they will book at least 4.5% of your online traffic, then they will do exactly that. So think about incorporating such a booking engine into your hotel websites and reap the benefits.
Get a 4X4 Turbo Channel Manager to Increase Bookings and Revenue
A good channel manager is proven to increase hotel’s occupancy and revenue by up to 50% with its features of Last Room Availability in all channels, giving equal chance of booking in all channels, rate parity across all channels making your guests trust in your hotel brand, Pool Inventory feature to automatically manage your allocations, Higher chance of getting group bookings of 4 to 10 rooms in one booking, etc. And one of the best names which you can trust to do exactly that is BookLogic. So trust your instinct and invest in this grand integrated engine which will make your business boom.
So if you are a hotel owner who doesn’t want online travel agencies to take all your customers, bring these tips into practice and you will start to feel a change in your business almost immediately.
