Online distribution is now more important than ever for the hospitality industry. In fact, OTA's and review websites as well search engines and portals have incredibly evolved over the past few years. Customers have a vast variety of websites to book hotels from and a wide range of search engines to use.
Hoteliers on the other hand would consider themselves lucky if their brand.com website got listed on search engines first page.
Some OTA's, by advertising the hotel's brand on their website are not only trying to convert the hotel's customer into an OTA customer but they even will not hesitate a minute to re-direct that hotel's customer to another hotel. Conversely, some review websites are unlawfully driving traffic to their websites through 'Brand and domain' grabbing - search engines should ensure that the best organic fit to a hotel request is not disappearing in amounts of third parties - A review website through your hotel request will be listed first on Google's, Yahoo and Bing search results; Tripadvisor for example will then introduce you to 'business listing' - a service for a fee that allows you to display your hotel's contact details on your Tripadvisor page! it cost about 40 USD a month! - Meta search engines should crawl hotel websites and display them equally -
In my opinion, hoteliers have to find ways to take control over their online distribution channels by doing so, they do not only increase RevPar but they will also build stronger bonds with their customers.
PPC by Google is one of the most effective tools to use when it comes to online advertising; social media, paid search, link building, Email campaigns should be more frequently used by small and medium sized hotels.
In order to compromise OTA's command over hotels, hoteliers and revenue managers should raise their online rates as high as possible so that customers will be redirected to book through the brand's website instead, after all, generally the only reason that customers went to search for your hotel online is to find possible lower rates - As a reservations manager I usually receive calls from patrons inquiring about our hotel prices, sometimes after offering a price, they say that they've found more interesting prices on other websites (booking.com, venere.com, expedia.com) and they ask if I could match the price they found online.
Establishing a powerful online presence is a must for every hotel today, whether its through link building, PPC or paid search, hoteliers have to find the balance between direct booking and OTA's, between online rates and occupancy.
Hoteliers on the other hand would consider themselves lucky if their brand.com website got listed on search engines first page.
Some OTA's, by advertising the hotel's brand on their website are not only trying to convert the hotel's customer into an OTA customer but they even will not hesitate a minute to re-direct that hotel's customer to another hotel. Conversely, some review websites are unlawfully driving traffic to their websites through 'Brand and domain' grabbing - search engines should ensure that the best organic fit to a hotel request is not disappearing in amounts of third parties - A review website through your hotel request will be listed first on Google's, Yahoo and Bing search results; Tripadvisor for example will then introduce you to 'business listing' - a service for a fee that allows you to display your hotel's contact details on your Tripadvisor page! it cost about 40 USD a month! - Meta search engines should crawl hotel websites and display them equally -
In my opinion, hoteliers have to find ways to take control over their online distribution channels by doing so, they do not only increase RevPar but they will also build stronger bonds with their customers.
PPC by Google is one of the most effective tools to use when it comes to online advertising; social media, paid search, link building, Email campaigns should be more frequently used by small and medium sized hotels.
In order to compromise OTA's command over hotels, hoteliers and revenue managers should raise their online rates as high as possible so that customers will be redirected to book through the brand's website instead, after all, generally the only reason that customers went to search for your hotel online is to find possible lower rates - As a reservations manager I usually receive calls from patrons inquiring about our hotel prices, sometimes after offering a price, they say that they've found more interesting prices on other websites (booking.com, venere.com, expedia.com) and they ask if I could match the price they found online.
Establishing a powerful online presence is a must for every hotel today, whether its through link building, PPC or paid search, hoteliers have to find the balance between direct booking and OTA's, between online rates and occupancy.
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