Venezia Palace drives online sales high to reclaim the summer Leave a comment

Venezia Palace drives online sales high to reclaim the summer

Online bookings thrive for holiday resort Venezia Palace more than doubling its rewards from digital channels amid difficult economic markets and tourism depression in Turkey.

Venezia Palace redeveloped its sales strategy by concentrating on its online direct and multichannel bookings network. Even with still three months to go before the end of 2016 and as the hotel is due to close its doors on the summer season it has earned an increase of 18% in online direct sales.

Within the first 8 months of 2016 the popular holiday resort has managed to improve its occupancy through third party channels with direct connections through ChannelPass by BookLogic to gain an increase of 68% in reservations.

A growth of two thirds on 2015, with still time to go before the end of the season is proving that the online market is yet still in its infancy, as the global markets develop intelligent technology to share booking data instantly across multiple channels, providing live available inventory and sophisticated pricing patterns. This has reflected 2015’s success when the account first transferred to BookLogic’s management, growing direct sales revenue by 260% and evolving online sales 2.5 times its value on 2014.

Online booking and reservations growth for Venezia Palace has earned greater confidence to develop this as a lead channel. A 51% increase in overall online bookings shows the further potential available to this hotel resort and the Turkish market.

Revenue growth has reinforced the decision to shift the focus to online sales, allowing the hotel to be more independent, relying neither on one channel nor on one market. Venezian Palace now has access to European and Russian direct markets while also managing to reach its domestic market through smartphone bookings, optimising a direct booking channel through BookLogic’s Smart Booking Engine and multiple channels through it’s ChannelPass channel manager.

This has been proven with a growth of revenue from online channels by over 370%. BookLogic leapt into action in early April 2015 by implementing the booking engine and channel manager. By the close of last year the online sales network revenue had jumped well over 100% and within the last few months continued with its growth trajectory.

“While markets are tough we are showing that there is business out there and we are going to get it for you. Traditional channels are unable to deliver consistenty, the network is slowing as a result of responding to political and economic problems in the market, while online channels are more flexible and adaptable and are able to capture new customers across a wider sales network. It really is time to connect to travellers through their smartphones across multiple travel sales websites and apps.” said Oral Yigitkus, CEO, BookLogic.

“The numbers of bookings and reservations from online sales is growing rapidly, BookLogic is proving to be the perfect tool and partner. The first aim we had was to create reservations from our own website. The rest of the OTAs are doing a lot of marketing on our behalf and they are bringing more booking success for us now, but we need to create more direct sales.” said Mr Baris, assistant sales and marketing manager, Venezian Palace.

Head first into online sales – creating a lead channel where it didn’t exist

Venezia is a 540-room hotel opened in 2003, based 15km from the airport in Antalya on Lara Beach designed as a small-copy of Venice with a little Sao Marco Brasilia. It’s family and standard rooms are in demand for most of the summer from Mid-March to the end of October and it has traditionally worked on a six-month operation, due to its lack of indoor areas that can often expose itself to the cold nights in winter.

Mr Baris, assistant sales and marketing manager, has been with the hotel for nine summer seasons since 2008. Prior to developing its online network in early 2015 the hotel had been using a legacy system. This was a mix of local programmes that were not suitable for growth, reaching new markets or the higher demands from online and direct sales strategies.

The general situation in Turkey has been pretty dismal of late with a fall in tourism due to political, economical and terror problems and has had a great impact on business all over the country, by up to 80% in some cases. However the hotel has seen growth during the first part of 2015 as its revenue increased by more than €400,000. Yet in the current economic situation competitors are beginning to perform just as well, with production from channels at their lowest for some time.

Therefore it was essential to develop the online network further by expanding the reach of sales channels. The resort selected BookLogic to help the Venezia Palace to work with a wider market, not just concentrating on the domestic and immediate markets. “With BookLogic we have access to Middle East, Russia and EU countries, we feel successful. Our markets have also expanded in Iran, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Germany, and the Netherlands. We are also starting to see a return from the domestic market, which as a result with these new technologies we will be able to optimise to our full advantage.”

“We are now creating many more new promotions, with BookLogic supporting us very successfully, and providing good sound advice. We are creating our own packages that include tours and activities; the system is ideal to create any kind of package. We found that the other CRS cannot support these requirements. They have tools to add travel agents easily and simply, plus the reservation panel and channel manager make it simple to update across all channels.”

Venezian Palace is developing its relationship with BookLogic to expand its adverts and presence across all digital channels including Google and social media channels to drive more direct sales “We are so satisfied and we will try to do our best to increase online sales with BookLogic, we only have positive comments working with them.”