Top Tactics to Drive Direct Bookings at Your Hotel

The last few years have seen major shifts within the hospitality industry. Along with the uneven demand and staffing challenges caused by the pandemic, there was one significant upside – a shift in confidence that saw guests book directly through the hotel vs. relying on OTA websites to find the best deal. As the industry continues to recover, some of those booking perks disappeared, and there’s been another shift as many guests once again feel more comfortable booking their travel arrangements through OTA sites.

6 Tactics to Drive Direct Bookings at Your Hotel

For hotels, the loss of direct bookings has an unfortunate two-fold effect – losing revenue due to high OTA commission fees and the inability to deliver a personalized guest experience due to the lack of known information about that guest. With the right tools in place, hotels can win the battle for direct bookings; all it takes is the right tools and mindset. To help you get started, we’ve compiled some of our top tactics to get guests to bypass the OTA sites and book their dream vacation directly on your most important channel – your hotel website.

1. Ensure Your Website Is Set up for Mobile Users

It’s 2023, and responsive websites are no longer an option but a must. With more and more audiences booking their hotel stays on their phone, a lackluster mobile experience means that guests may be unable to book directly on your website – even if they wanted to. Ensure your website design works seamlessly on every device, with prominent links and buttons to your booking engine (more on that).

2. Upgrade to an Integrated Booking Engine

Regarding hotel booking engines, not just any old version will do. To drive conversions on your website effectively, you need an integrated booking engine on your hotel website packed with features that convert lookers into bookers, including dynamic pricing rules, retargeting capabilities, and urgency messaging like time-bound marketing taglines and strike-through pricing.

3. Personalize the Website Experience

Your hotel website shouldn’t focus exclusively on the “book now” experience. Instead, each guest should be delivered a unique pathway through your website, based on their unique interests and how they like to travel. There are multiple ways to tailor that experience, including but not limited to adaptable blog content, intent-driven offers, and other personalized perks. With an advanced content management system (CMS), you can harness the power of your user data to deliver a tailored experience bound to drive clicks and conversions directly on your website.

4. Build Smart Sem Campaigns

Before many guests even visit the OTA site, their guest journey begins with a simple online search. With the right search engine marketing (SEM) campaigns, you can drive visitors directly to your website by bidding on targeted terms for your brand, hotel, location, and even major selling points like your hotel restaurant, rooftop pool, etc. That said, be sure to bid for your key terms (especially exact match, so your ads appear first) before turning to non-brand terms and phrases. This will ensure your hotels are always at the top of the search list.

5. Elevate Your Ad Spend by Investing in Landing Pages

Creating compelling ads that lead people to generic landing pages is a surefire way to make them lose interest and leave your website. Ideally, any ad from SEM and Paid Social posts (such as on Facebook and Instagram) to your display banners should all mirror the experience when a potential guest taps the ‘Learn More’ or ‘Book Now’ button. If your landing page post-click has a completely different look, tone, and low-to-no relevance based on the ad – the result is spiked bounce rates and fewer conversions. The solution is taking the time to create relevant, visually-rich landing pages for high-value terms and campaigns. Custom landing pages also facilitate more precise reporting, allowing you to analyze and update the content based on specific audiences to increase conversions and upsell.

6. Optimize Conversions with Rate-Matching Technology

It’s hard to keep up with the constantly changing rates offered across third-party channels and OTA sites, but with the right tech, you can gain the upper hand and deliver the best rates to your guests. Innovative solutions like Cendyn’s Rate Match, can integrate with your booking engine to modify your rates to match or beat OTA price violations in real time– using rules you set up in advance. By optimizing your rate-matching technology, you’re giving your guests the confidence that they are getting the best possible rate when they book direct.

Free Guide: 5 Data-driven Strategies for Optimizing Your Hotel Revenue