• News
    • VRM Intel News
    • Latest News
    • Sponsor News
  • COVID-19
  • Marketing
  • Tech
  • OTAs
  • Customer Service
  • Regs
  • Housekeeping
  • More
    • Education
      • Calendar of Events
      • Videos & Whitepapers
    • VRM Intel Live!
    • Reports Login
    • VRM Intel Magazine
    • Subscribe
    • Advertise
    • Authors
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
VRM Intel
  • News
    • Timing is Everything: The Impact of Seasonality on COVID Recovery for Southeast Destinations
    • Meredith Oskenholt-Meredith Lodging-Bend Oregon
      The Principles That Have Guided Meredith Lodging through the Global Pandemic, Raging Forest Fires and Personal Family Challenges
    • VRM Intel_Christmas-in-New-Orleans
      That’s the Ticket! Register Now to Enjoy Big Savings and Convenient Payment Plans for the 2021 Vacation Rental Women’s Summit in New Orleans
    • Inhabit IQ Gets “Significant Investment” from Goldman Sachs Merchant Banking Division
    • Airbnb Goes Public. CEO Brian Chesky: “Travel is never going to look like it did in January”
    • VRM Intel News
    • Latest News
    • Sponsor News
  • COVID-19
    • Timing is Everything: The Impact of Seasonality on COVID Recovery for Southeast Destinations
    • Meredith Oskenholt-Meredith Lodging-Bend Oregon
      The Principles That Have Guided Meredith Lodging through the Global Pandemic, Raging Forest Fires and Personal Family Challenges
    • Airbnb Goes Public. CEO Brian Chesky: “Travel is never going to look like it did in January”
    • Short-Term Rental Industry Giants Grapple with Building Brand Loyalty, Democratization, Regulations, and More at Skift’s 2020 STR Summit
    • All Star and SoCal Vacation Homes
      The Bright Spot in 2020 Travel: U.S. Vacation Rentals See Higher ADRs, Revenue, and Adj. Pd. Occupancy
  • Marketing
    • Timing is Everything: The Impact of Seasonality on COVID Recovery for Southeast Destinations
    • Learn How You Can Unleash Your ‘Limitless Female Energy’ During VRM’s Thought Leadership Series Featuring Author/Speaker Amber Hurdle
    • How to Use Website Traffic to Gauge Demand for Your Market
    • Elements of a Property Detail Page: How They Can Make or Break Your Bookings
    • VRMIntel_Fall2020_Fast Paced Revenue Management
      Fast-Paced Revenue Management: The 10-Minute, $10,000 Mistake
  • Tech
    • Inhabit IQ Gets “Significant Investment” from Goldman Sachs Merchant Banking Division
    • 2021 Social Media Game Changer
      Are You Ready to Ride the Wave to Becoming a 2021 Social Media Game Changer?
    • NDAs & Confidentiality Agreements: What to Include and When to Enforce
    • Selling Your Business? Know Your Tech Stuff!
    • Dynamic Pricing: To Adjust Rates or Not to Adjust Rates
  • OTAs
    • Airbnb Goes Public. CEO Brian Chesky: “Travel is never going to look like it did in January”
    • 6 Takeaways from Vrbo’s 2021 Consumer Travel Trend Report
    • Barron’s: Airbnb Set to Price December 9 and Trade December 10
    • Booking.com Affirms Commitment to Quality with Minimum Cleanliness Score Requirement
    • Airbnb is Finally Going Public: Takeaways for Property Managers from IPO Filing
  • Customer Service
    • Meredith Oskenholt-Meredith Lodging-Bend Oregon
      The Principles That Have Guided Meredith Lodging through the Global Pandemic, Raging Forest Fires and Personal Family Challenges
    • Dynamic Pricing: To Adjust Rates or Not to Adjust Rates
    • Repurposing Space: Broadening Your Vacation Rental’s Appeal
    • Booking.com Affirms Commitment to Quality with Minimum Cleanliness Score Requirement
    • New Customers Bring New Demands: Evolving to Meet the Needs of New Customer Avatars
  • Regs
    • Barron’s: Airbnb Set to Price December 9 and Trade December 10
    • Strategic Forecasting Beyond 2021: Are Vacation Rental Managers Changing Fast Enough?
    • Alabama’s tourism economy benefits from Florida Governor DeSantis’ shutdown of vacation rentals
    • Airbnb reaches out to city officials to influence “transitional travel reopening plans”
    • Jeff Paglialonga on FL Vacation Rental COVID-related ban: “We need your support to rectify what I believe is to be the illegal taking of property from Florida vacation rental owners.”
  • Housekeeping
    • Booking.com Affirms Commitment to Quality with Minimum Cleanliness Score Requirement
    • Q&A with Breezeway founder Jeremy Gall about company’s $8 million funding round and more
    • Gatlinburg-based Cabins For YOU acquires Chalet Village and is looking for more. Q&A with owner and founder Greg Plimpton
    • What is the cost of Airbnb’s recommended 24- to 72-hour “buffer” time between stays?
    • The Professional Vacation Rental Manager’s Crisis Playbook
  • More
    • Education
      • Calendar of Events
      • Videos & Whitepapers
    • VRM Intel Live!
    • Reports Login
    • VRM Intel Magazine
    • Subscribe
    • Advertise
    • Authors
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
  • RSS

Customer Service for Vacation Rental Professionals

How Hotels Push Direct Bookings and Seek OTA Independence

How Hotels Push Direct Bookings and Seek OTA Independence
mm
Alexa Nota
January 30, 2019

As property managers and homeowners rally to promote direct bookings and build OTA independence, so too are the vacation rental industry’s comrades in the battle: hotels. Triptease, a direct booking software provider for hotel accommodations, is one of the key players in the hotel #BookDirect movement. The company’s Direct Booking Summit last fall provided an inside look at the hotel industry’s perspective on OTA independence, which revealed some similarities and some striking differences from that of vacation rentals.

Generally speaking, the summit made clear that third parties are here to stay for hotels, and hoteliers largely accept them as a standard and necessary part of their marketing mix – a “necessary evil,” as many of them said. Hoteliers also acknowledged that direct bookings may not always be the best bookings. Many are willing to let some OTA guests continue to book through third-party sites as they weigh the costs of OTA commissions against the primary and secondary costs of direct bookings, including websites and booking engines, staff salaries, and others.

Still, direct bookings are important to hotels, and at the summit, they looked at driving more direct bookings through four main lenses:

  • Looking at data in different segmentations and with better visualization
  • Removing the silos that keep data and knowledge from being shared between marketing, sales, revenue management, operations, and other departments
  • Leveraging their strength in local, expert content on their properties and destinations
  • Focusing ever more closely on guest experience and customer service to compete with third-party channels and win repeat guests

Ahead of 2019’s #BookDirect Guest Education Day on February 6, VRM Intel spoke with Lily McIlwain, Triptease’s head of content, to dive deeper into the direct booking movement from the hotel industry’s point of view.

What is the current state of the hotel industry in direct booking?

Lily McIlwain: The hotel industry is in a very different space to where it was a couple of years ago. Many hoteliers are actively pursuing book direct strategies like managing their parity, introducing exclusive offers, and optimizing their websites to ensure booking direct is an attractive proposition for potential guests.

Many hotels still see their commissions to online travel agencies (OTAs) growing every year, squeezing their budgets and making it more difficult to spend time and money on the guest experience. OTAs have vast data scale, which makes it hard for hotels to compete when it comes to acquiring and converting their high-value guests. The direct booking movement has come a long way, but for many hotels, there is still further to go until they reach their optimal business mix.

 

Is there an industry standard ratio of direct to indirect bookings that Triptease recommends? How can hotels increase their direct booking percentage?

LM: The optimal business mix will be different for every hotel. The most sophisticated hotels are analyzing their channels to see how guest type and value varies across them, then tweaking their channel mix accordingly. There is an in-depth webinar on this topic available on the Triptease website. This type of analysis should be ongoing across different periods. As a general rule of thumb, OTAs should be used to reach and convert guests that a hotel would never be able to convert themselves – e.g. in a geographic area that they don’t market to. An unhelpful OTA balance is one where OTAs are cannibalizing bookings that hotels could convert themselves. For example, previous guests.

 

Where are hotels getting stronger with direct booking and where are there still challenges?

LM: Hotels are increasingly aware of the need for parity management and ensuring that they always have the most compelling rate for guests. Many are investing in tools like Triptease’s parity management software to track their disparities and rectify them on their OTAs. However, a major challenge in maintaining parity comes from the practice of OTAs (often smaller sites without partnerships with the hotels whose rooms they sell) buying wholesale rates and selling them onto guests without the knowledge or consent of the hotel. This means hotels are often undercut significantly online, which is a particular issue on metasearch engines where guests are primarily making comparisons based on price. A major challenge for 2019 will be for hoteliers to regain control of their downstream distribution.

 

What is the outlook for 2019? What is Triptease keeping an eye on or looking forward to?

LM: Metasearch is going to be a major focus for many hotels in 2019. Google is investing heavily in its metasearch option, which means there is an increased opportunity for hotels to reach guests when they’re just beginning to plan their trip. The best hotels will expand their book direct strategy to include metasearch advertising and invest in solutions that allow them to provide a full-funnel direct booking experience to high-value guests. Hotels must align their on-site conversion efforts with their top-of-funnel acquisition strategy if they are going to win back bookings from OTAs. At Triptease, we’re looking forward to our three Direct Booking Summit events in Singapore, Paris, and Miami where we’ll be bringing the hotel industry together to discuss strategies, compare case studies, and push the direct booking movement forward.


For more on metasearch, check out Triptease’s recently-launched Hotel Metasearch Handbook.

Read more about Direct Booking Summit insights: Are Hotels Obsessed with Direct Bookings?

Related Items#bookdirectdirect bookingdirect booking summitFeaturedgooglehotelslily mcilwainmetasearchOTA independenceOTAstriptease
View Comments (4)

4 Comments

  1. Pingback: How Hotels Push Direct Bookings and Seek OTA Independence - VRM Intel - Travel Is The New Club

  2. Pingback: How Hotels Push #BookDirect and Seek OTA Independence - VRM Intel - Travel Is The New Club

Leave a Reply

Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Customer Service for Vacation Rental Professionals
January 30, 2019
mm
Alexa Nota

Alexa Nota comes from a 10-year marketing and journalism background in travel, including three years as a vacation rental marketing manager in NC’s Outer Banks. She is also the co-founder and editor of a travel wellness magazine and the marketing consultant and founder of Canary Design. She currently calls Chapel Hill, NC home.

Related Items#bookdirectdirect bookingdirect booking summitFeaturedgooglehotelslily mcilwainmetasearchOTA independenceOTAstriptease

More in Customer Service for Vacation Rental Professionals

Meredith Oskenholt-Meredith Lodging-Bend Oregon

The Principles That Have Guided Meredith Lodging through the Global Pandemic, Raging Forest Fires and Personal Family Challenges

Zandra WolfgramJanuary 12, 2021
Read More

Dynamic Pricing: To Adjust Rates or Not to Adjust Rates

Cliff JohnsonNovember 23, 2020
Read More

Repurposing Space: Broadening Your Vacation Rental’s Appeal

Amy BradacNovember 22, 2020
Read More

Booking.com Affirms Commitment to Quality with Minimum Cleanliness Score Requirement

Amy HinoteNovember 18, 2020
Read More

New Customers Bring New Demands: Evolving to Meet the Needs of New Customer Avatars

Nancy McAleerNovember 14, 2020
Read More

Forecasting the Winter Season: Forces at Play in a Pandemic Economy

Insights CollectiveNovember 4, 2020
Read More
Scroll for more
Tap

Sponsor News

  • Inhabit IQ Gets “Significant Investment” from Goldman Sachs Merchant Banking Division
    Latest NewsDecember 18, 2020
  • You Are Your Best Revenue Manager
    Revenue ManagementNovember 30, 2020
  • How Email Helped Save Vacation Rental Companies During the COVID-19 Pandemic
    AdvertisementNovember 21, 2020
  • Booking.com Affirms Commitment to Quality with Minimum Cleanliness Score Requirement
    Customer Service for Vacation Rental ProfessionalsNovember 18, 2020
VRM Intel
Calendar of Events
Videos & Whitepapers
VRMintel Magazine
Subscribe
Advertise
About Us
Authors
Contact Us

Recent News

  • Timing is Everything: The Impact of Seasonality on COVID Recovery for Southeast Destinations
    BlogJanuary 18, 2021
  • Meredith Oskenholt-Meredith Lodging-Bend Oregon
    The Principles That Have Guided Meredith Lodging through the Global Pandemic, Raging Forest Fires and Personal Family Challenges
    BlogJanuary 12, 2021
  • VRM Intel_Christmas-in-New-Orleans
    That’s the Ticket! Register Now to Enjoy Big Savings and Convenient Payment Plans for the 2021 Vacation Rental Women’s Summit in New Orleans
    Industry News for Vacation Rental ManagersJanuary 8, 2021
  • VRM Intel_Look Back List from 2020
    VRM Intel Brings You A Top 10 Look Back List of 2020 Stories
    BlogJanuary 1, 2021

View Current Issue

VRMintel Copyright © 2016-17 | Click HERE to Subscribe | Privacy Policy | Disclaimer | Copyright | Jobs | Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn

Exceptional Stays Drives Direct Bookings with the Human Touch
Vince Perez: The Rise of Direct Bookings in the Vacation Rental Industry
We use cookies and similar technologies to recognize repeat visits, as well as to measure the effectiveness of campaigns and analyze traffic. By clicking "I Accept" you consent to the use of cookies unless you have disabled them.Accept