Google: How can hotels attract customers to book through direct sales channels?

Hotels are eager to reduce their reliance on OTAs for customer acquisition. They want to save the high fees they pay to third-party channels.

However, it is not easy to attract customers to their official website and app (i.e. direct sales channels).

So a host of experts have emerged to offer hoteliers advice on how to increase direct bookings.

Since 2006, Austin, Texas-based Software Advice has provided software evaluation and recommendation services to 160,000 companies in all industries, not just the hospitality industry.

The company recently paid for a survey of about 2,500 consumers on Google’s consumer research platform to understand what incentives would get travelers to skip the OTA channel.

They later published a report on their investigation online. Here are the highlights:

A free room upgrade, such as one with a balcony or a better view, was the most effective way to encourage people to book directly, with nearly half of respondents choosing this option.

Free food and drinks ranked second, for both men and women.

The above two programs beat out gift cards, free use of hotel facilities and other very attractive rewards.

R. Terry Mueller, CEO of eMax Hotel Internet Marketing, believes that hotels should integrate these special offers and place them prominently on the website so that users using desktop or tablet browsers can see them when they visit for the first time.

via: traveldaily