What Marketing Strategies can Hotels use to Grow Direct Bookings?

“There are a few things that accommodation providers can do easily:

• Encourage loyalty & booking direct. Answering reviews with offers included or incentives for booking direct on their next stay can help.
• Ensure that you have a smooth, hassle-free booking path online. Clear and complete information, flawless IBE and automated payment (two-way authentication).
• Engage with your returning guests. They are your brand ambassadors. Proactively ask them to book direct when they have return visits and explain what is in it for them. Make sure that brand loyalty and the related guest benefits make a difference. If this is done the right way, they will share it with others too.
• Price matching ( I know it is difficult with the big OTA’s playing funny games) or incentivise booking direct a bit higher rate than on OTA’s. I know some chains had the lowest price promise. What you offer if they find lower rates, is up to you as a hotelier.
• Social media campaigns where you explain the “why” of booking direct

And I have a few more forward-thinking ideas – but the industry might not be ready to adapt ;-)

1) Partner up with other service providers, so your guests can book their complete trip. This is currently the big advantage they find on OTA websites. They can book flights, cars, transfers and everything else they might need during their stay. If you can embed a similar offer online, you show you go the extra mile for your guests and make booking easy!

2) The other reason OTA’s are preferred is that potential guests can easily compare competitive offers and different accommodation providers, in terms of rate but also in terms of facilities, service, location etc. So if they have access anyway to this information, why not provide it openly on your own branded website? If you believe in your product, service, brand promise and added value for your guests, you will not be afraid to help your ideal guest to compare with other hotels and then make the decision (and maybe include an affiliate booking fee for competitors if they book elsewhere, this can create a huge extra revenue stream).”

“The optimal mix is different for each hotel based on size, location, and type of business. It also depends on how new the business is. A third-party partner may be your best friend as you launch or anytime that volume is a key focus. However, as you establish your reputation and become more focused on rates and optimizing profitability, your dependency on third parties should diminish with each passing month. While I believe there is no wrong mix as long as it is working for you, there should be a constant effort made towards continuous improvement from wherever you are now, to increased independence.

What would I recommend to promote direct bookings?

• Always give your own website and direct business the best packages and offers. I have a message for big brands. Even as a “member”, I often find cheaper rates on OTAs apps for the same dates and conditions. The revenue manager may feel like a genius giving a mobile-only rate to the OTAs, but what is that costing you? You can create offers for third parties when needed but try to give your direct channels the same deal with an enhancement so you always have an edge.
• Be a great experience, not a commodity. Polite and professional service won’t inspire loyalty. If you want guests to love you, and only want to stay with you, you have to love your guests and make them feel great, not just good, about staying with you.
• Make it a priority to convert 3rd Party bookings to direct relationships. Start by sending your own pre-stay email with pre-registration to all guests including the guests booked through OTA’s.”

“Increasing direct bookings takes hard work and requires more than a small discount or value-add on your booking engine. If you wish to shift customers away from a commissionable booking channel, you must have an action plan in place. The discount for direct is lovely but you have to first consider how people are going to find that discount to then book it.

At RevenYou, we find hotels that are actively working on moving customers from OTAs to direct can expect to lower OTA business to anywhere from 20-40%. But, you do need to be doing the following:
1. Your website. It must be easily found and user friendly. The information provided on the website must go beyond what the OTA is offering. The experience must be seamless and customer-centric. How many clicks does it take to book on an OTA versus how many clicks on your own website?
2. Google Analytics. Monitor and make appropriate changes. Your website is your shop window and you need to ensure that it is performing for you.
3. Sales Funnel. To ensure a constant stream of customers to your website, we need a funnel. Where are we finding these customers and how are we moving them across to our website?
4. Social media. We need to be building a relationship with our past, present and future customers and social media is one option. Start posting regularly and interacting with your customers.
5. Experiential travel. OTAs specialise in room-only rates. Our websites and booking engines have the functionality to do so much more. Start collaborating within your local community and build packages that, whilst they may not sell in the 100s, do attract publicity, play into your SEO and increase reach on social media. Customers will start planning a trip on the OTAs and then head to your website where they will find so many more options.
6. Sales calls. Picking up the phone and calling past, present and future users to entice them into the hotel. Take the time to build a relationship with customers.
7. EDMs. Regular newsletters can entice past customers back with a wide array of amazing packages, details on events and updates on the local area. Customers don’t come back unless they have a reason and you must provide that reason regularly.
8. Phone. Training the people to answer your phone and sell is equally important. Far too often we focus on digital and forget that the person answering our phone must be equally well trained in how to sell.
9. Paid Advertising. Once you have completed all of the above actions, then consider paid advertising.
Direct bookings are not free. The above does cost money and you must constantly be reviewing your ROI on sales and marketing spend to ensure you are getting value for money.”

“To increase your direct bookings, we need to be busy with brand awareness. Guests are everywhere, and not only actively searching through the OTA’s. The smart guests that are experience-driven, are constantly searching for content.

Therefore I’m recommending to become an ambassador and a destination expert for your area. By giving content about the destination and its hidden gems, while offering your accommodation/hospitality experience, one can gain more direct bookings for interested travellers. In today’s world, all of us want to have a sustainable independent business; the aim should be 40-50% direct bookings. This should be based on advertising, social media, content-sharing and of course word of mouth and returning clients.”

“In an ideal world, you want all your bookings to flow through direct bookings channels. This way, you are saving on agent & OTA commissions. However, if you are struggling with direct bookings, then using agents and OTA’s is a viable option.

As much as hospitality consultants & marketing gurus may complain about agent fees and OTA’s commissions, you need to look at it from a different business perspective as an owner or manager. Let’s take a step back.

You see, every business has what we call a CAC (customer acquisition cost). Simply put, it’s the cost of acquiring a client. You’re paying for this cost either in TIME or MONEY. If you have more time, less money, then use OTA’s and agents to bring in those customers. Your 3-15% commission fee to an agent or OTA is your CAC. If you have more money than time, then advertise with a strategy to attract direct bookings. Whatever the average cost was in ad spend to convert 1 direct booking is your CAC.

There’s no set percentage in my mind. If you can attract bookings via agents/OTA’s you need an on-site strategy to grab that client’s data for future marketing AND a way to increase the AOV (average order value) of the client along with methods to maximize the LTV (lifetime value). When you have all of this in place, you can afford to pay more than your competitors to afford a customer. This means that an increased customer acquisition cost due to rising cost on Facebook, Google or OTA’s won’t hurt your business. This will soon leave you as the #1 choice in your prospect’s mind while your competitors wonder how you did it.

In terms of marketing strategies, I would urge you to be an expert in your area. Use tools like answerthepublic.com to find what people are searching for in your area and answer those topics with simple landing pages that either prompt prospects to get on your mailing list with a coupon of sorts or book their trip right now. You need to install Google Tag Manager on this page, load all your advertising pixels for retargeting marketing campaigns, and track button clicks through Google Analytics to understand how well your content performs. This is a powerful FREE organic strategy anyone can do.”

“To increase direct bookings, hotels should leverage OTA bookings. An OTA booking should not only be seen by the hotel as a cost of business, but as an opportunity to convert direct. This is easily achieved by owning the guest by the time they check-in through their email and mobile. Hotels can contact guests directly and offer them a code to book again with a discount. Many of the properties I work with have “BOOKDIRECT&SAVE” as their wi-fi password.”

“Increasing direct bookings as an accommodation provider is extremely important as online travel agents take more in commission each year. The power to drive guests and returning guests to your website or call you direct is where you can get the biggest slice of the revenue pie.

• Optimize your website and make sure that it performs well. Make sure that you have a mobile responsive website – as the majority of people are using now their phones for booking.
• Photos of your accommodation – great photos lead to more bookings, but not modified pictures, use real pictures.
• Video – property and surrounding area all in a 30-second video
• SEO – Search Engine Optimization – the better your SEO for your website, the better you rank in Google, and the more direct bookings you get.
• Deals – Incentivize the user to book direct and promote repeat customers by promoting a deal when they do. This can be done in many ways but simple methods are ones such as “get 5% off when you book direct”.
• Use Digital Marketing
• Promoting your business online: Google Ads, Facebook Ads, Instagram, LinkedIn
• A simple method of improving your direct bookings is to connect with local businesses in your area.”

“Increasing hoteliers’ investments in a) digital marketing and b) CRM technology is hoteliers’ ONLY feasible strategy to increase direct bookings. Did anyone notice that Expedia spent nearly 50% and Booking nearly 40% of their net revenue on Sales & Marketing in 2021? Compare this to 2.5% of net room revenue that hoteliers usually spend on marketing in “normal” years like 2019. Even worse, marketing spend in U.S. hospitality during the pandemic shrank significantly compared to 2019, dropping to as low as 50% in 2020 and rebounding slightly to 54% in 2021 of the pre-pandemic level (STR).

Marketing spending in Europe and APAC is even worse than in North America. With all the lingering repercussions in hospitality from the pandemic, unfortunately I do not expect hoteliers to increase significantly their marketing spend in 2022.

Implementing CRM technology and program is a crucial approach to significantly increase direct bookings. In the post-pandemic era, success in bringing repeat business will make or break the property. You cannot have a meaningful repeat business (5-15 times cheaper than acquiring new guests) without a CRM technology and program in place. Only a meaningful CRM technology application – as part of your hotel tech stack – can ensure deep engagement with your past and future guests.

CRM tech not only provides automated pre-, during- and post-stay communications, guest satisfaction surveys, guest retention marketing automation and drip marketing campaigns, but takes it a step further via guest recognition program management and loyalty marketing. All of these fully automated CRM initiatives keep “the conversation going” with your upcoming and past guests, keeps them engaged and steers them in the right direction: to book your hotel when it’s time for them to visit your destination again. In addition, you can use your CRM first party data about your best guests to launch similar audiences marketing on Google, Facebook, Instagram, etc., to target potential customers with similar characteristics as your best guests.

CRM technology has become widely available and reasonably priced via hospitality-specialized vendors like Cendyn CRM, Revinate CRM, TravelCLICK GMS, etc., yet less than 10% of independent hotels have implemented CRM programs in place.”

“Direct bookings are made directly with the hotel by email, calling the hotel and booking with the reservation team without using a 3rd party intermediary such as OTAs. Direct bookings can definitely lead to more revenue for the hotels since they are not subject to the payment of a commission. Furthermore, direct bookings guarantee better customer management by creating a strong sense of loyalty with the customers and long-lasting relationships with them.

A great customer experience is delivered because more detailed information is gathered, such as special occasion requests, birthdays, specific requests and personalized experiences offered. The first marketing strategy can be the personalized service which will lead to an increase of direct bookings.

A second important strategy is related to the hotel website which is required to be mobile-friendly and optimized to guarantee a flawless experience in making the reservation and proceeding with the payment with a clear CTA. The website will give the first impression and “first impressions always matter” so use the best images of the property and rooms and offer a seamless customer journey.

A third strategy is social media management which builds relationships with new guests and retains the loyal guests. Social platforms like Facebook can be used directly to book the stay.

Direct bookings must represent a minimum of 70% of the bookings of the hotel. It’s also confirmed that the 70% of total online bookings belong to OTAs, but this percentage is decreasing because new and future guests will prefer direct bookings due to the growing demands to receive the best personalized experiences since they have a strong post-pandemic desire to be more pampered than ever before.”

“It’s very hard to achieve an ideal % of direct bookings. We’d all love to see direct bookings via our booking engine, from walk-ins, pay fewer commissions, have 90% average occupancy all year round, etc. Word of mouth and Tripadvisor reviews are probably the greatest sources of direct booking, not to mention (let’s be honest here) a quick look at Booking.com reviews often plays as a confirmation tool to finalize the reservation directly with the hotel via phone/email/website. Let’s not forget that when we’ll blame the greedy OTAs.

As hoteliers, we can only indulge in the flexibility our market is ruled by and what our guests want, rather than fighting it. As I said before on this panel, we can tweak it in our favour via a backtested “book direct” strategy as well as converting our OTA booking guests during and after the stay. I’ve seen hotel managers discriminating against OTAs guests by allocating the worst rooms, without even asking themselves why or “how will we make them fall in love with us so they will directly contact us next time?”.

In my experience, nudging our guests upon arrival, or better, upon departure, to sign for our newsletter or handing a “book-direct” voucher (through an affiliate code to track the member of staff who handed it) has been an efficient procedure to create repeat direct guests as well as an incentive for front office staff to win upsell, free stays, awards, etc.”

“Hotels should look at the digital landscape and work with a digital expert to increase their online presence. Unfortunately, some hotels still do not have a good online presence, with bad quality websites, poor pictures and a needlessly long user journey. Hotels also need to address the rate parity and value-adds on their own website to increase direct bookings. Hotels should ideally have about 20% of their bookings coming directly via the hotel website. Content is king and we need to use this concept on our websites by showcasing the hotel & the experiences that can be offered to guests.”

“Having worked for the largest wholesale tour operator in the world for over 25 years I was constantly hearing from hotels about how they wanted to increase their direct bookings and reduce their distribution costs. My area of responsibility was Amsterdam, the home of the largest OTA in the world – how could they compete? Many said that they tried to increase direct bookings by ensuring that the best available rates were on their website, or that their website offered packages including local attractions, and that their website was well designed with great content and photos etc., but how does the guest arrive at their website to make a direct booking in the first place?

I built my own business exactly around this question – use review sites, where 90% of consumers go to help them in their decision-making process, to tell guests to book directly. On Google and TripAdvisor, it is possible to include contact details such as email addresses, telephone numbers and even website addresses. There are no direct links but including this information in your signature makes it so much easier for potential guests to find you. And after your sign off, if you add a message such as “SPECIAL OFFER – book direct, stay 3 nights or longer and receive free breakfast each morning/bottle of wine/free car parking” etc., then this will incentivise them even further to book direct.”

“Hoteliers should aim to receive as many direct bookings as possible. Direct bookings save commission costs and allow a hotelier to communicate directly with the guest. This improves the possibilities for guest interaction and makes it easier to personalise their stay and offer perks and upsell opportunities.

The starting point for receiving direct reservations is a high-quality, enticing and user-friendly website that is easily found by search engines. The website must have a user-friendly booking engine and all reservations and conversion rates must be tracked to have the right information and insights. Hotels may offer special benefits that are only available to guests who book through the hotel’s own website. These benefits should be clearly displayed. Special offers and exclusive packages that are only available through the hotel site are also a good way to increase the percentage of direct bookings. Last but not least, an accurate pricing strategy is mandatory. It will be really difficult to get direct reservations if the rates on OTA websites are cheaper.

A hotel’s distribution mix should be healthy: there should be a balance in the number of reservations generated across the different distribution channels. OTA’s are still needed to get visibility, however, the bulk of reservations should preferably come via the direct channel. Some hotels are relying on GDS or tour operations, while others are successful in attracting a good percentage of recurring guests or have an effective partner or corporate programme. The mutual goal for our clients is to have the hotel’s own website as the strongest source for reservations. With our web design and strategic online marketing services, we are able to realize this for our hotel clients.”

“At Cogwheel Marketing, we primarily work with branded hotels, not independent hotels. We do look at brand.com as a percentage of channel mix quite often. We like to see brand.com contribution to be at least 30%, but preferably 32%-35%. Every hotel and market is different, so we suggest using Demand or Kalibri data to compare your direct and OTA mix against your competitive set.

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