How can hotels better market through OTAs?

If you ask hoteliers whether they would invest their marketing budget into OTAs or GDSs, you’ll likely hear the answer: “I already pay these distributors a lot of money, why would I invest more into these channels?” This is understandable, as many hoteliers believe that distributors already make a good profit from hotels based on net rates, commissions, and channel fees.

But in most markets, OTAs and other sales channels can provide customers with many hotel options, and the ranking of these hotels on the page is largely determined by these distributors. Therefore, it is extremely important for hotels to gain a more favorable position than competitors on these platforms, which will enable the hotel to obtain more booking share. In addition to the basic elements such as attractive hotel photos and competitive prices, you must ensure that you are considered by your target customers from the beginning.

In fact, marketing through sales channels such as OTAs or GDS can be an extremely effective way to help hotels gain more bookings, but only if certain conditions are met - the most important of which is that the marketing plan should have good timing, transparency and clear positioning.

First, you have to make sure you can show your product to potential customers at the right time. This seems obvious, but the marketing world is full of uncertainty. My suggestion is: when users search for the city where the hotel is located, the hotel should directly cut into the booking process at the exact time. In this way, the hotel can provide the most relevant content at the most appropriate time.

Secondly, you need to manage your budget and monitor the results more transparently, and the best way to do this is through the CPC bidding model. You can use this model to set the maximum bid price and budget, and observe and analyze the effectiveness of marketing activities more clearly.

Finally, you need to tailor your strategy to specific periods of demand. If your hotel is already sold out for July, you shouldn’t invest resources in attracting customers who want to stay at your hotel in July. If you can limit your marketing activities to dates when you have inventory, it will be easier to achieve a high ROI.

This is not an ideal future scenario. Major large OTAs have added some new marketing techniques in the past few years, allowing hotels to get higher rankings in search results pages through CPC models. Many hotels have responded positively, and Lee Byrd of JHM Hotel Group described it this way:

"OTAs offer a better solution. They guarantee high rankings on search results pages when we need them, and we only pay when consumers click on our links. This pay-per-click model works very well for us. I can manage my budget and never have to worry about paying more to commission-based sales channels. Instead, I can actively invest that money in other channels that can help sell rooms - which is great because OTAs have this feature."

The good news for hoteliers is that they can easily test these marketing programs. Hotels can try them out, review the results, and then decide whether they are suitable and whether to continue using them.

In short, you need to know the ROI you set and then work towards it. Never assume that the existing distribution channels are already the best. You need to allocate your marketing budget more wisely and increase hotel bookings from OTA channels, so that you can achieve the ROI you set.