Say hello to shoppers that say goodbye to Expedia & Co.

June 27, 2005 |

Three out of ten online hotel shoppers just look at online travel agencies for reference, but ultimately book direct with their hotel of choice. That is, if they can find it. Learn how you can benefit and successfully convert traffic from Expedia & Co. to non-commissionable bookings for your hotel.

by Markus Busch

When it comes to online hotel reservations, more and more travelers not only turn to online travel agencies because of their booking-engines, but also the convenience of their shopping-engines as a first stop of reference when researching and planning their upcoming hotel stay.

That holds especially through for resort hotels where consumers require more information than currently available on the sites of online travel agencies. If you stay for a week or your valuable short break, you would like to know exactly what you are getting, and not just some stamp-sized pictures.

According to a recent report by PhoCusWright¹, online travel agencies are increasingly loosing potential customers to hotels directly, as three out of ten travelers shopping at online travel agencies ultimately purchase directly from a hotel.

What’s more, twice as many online travelers (36%) believe that the supplier-direct channel provides the best customer service compared to 15% who choose the online travel agency channel. And while 45% of shoppers think that online travel agencies offer the lowest prices - still nearly four out of 10 (38%) online travelers believe that suppliers offer the lowest prices.

Combine those findings and you have a solid foundation for a targeted marketing campaign that has the potential to bring you many happy returns with minimal costs of sale. And here is how:

Dress for success

Before they can embark on a trip to find you directly, make sure they first can easily find you on the websites of the major online travel agencies. Make use of the many promotional opportunities offered by online travel agencies and improve the position of your hotel on the search result pages for your destination. Some sites like hotel.de go even that far, as to offer you a direct link to your website.

Get found

There is a high likelihood that they will use Google to find you and will search with a combination of “destination” and “hotel name” keywords. Therefore make sure your site ranks on the first search result page for your keyword combinations on Google - and 80% of those looking for you will find their way from Expedia & Co. via Google to your website.

Get help from an experienced search engine marketer if your site currently does not rank on the first result page of Google for your “destination” and “hotel name” keyword combinations. Not only will the investment pay for itself (with the friendly help of Expedia & Co.), but if you’re serious about your online business, customers may expect to find you on Google’s first result page when searching for your business name.

Connect, engage, convert

Now that they have successfully found you, make sure they find what they are looking for - more and better quality pictures, additional information and timely offers - all wrapped up in a professional website with easy to use navigation.

But don’t over do it. Too much information may just lead to confusion or make them aware of a problem, need, or opportunity. You don’t want them to leave without an action. And please, get rid of your link page.

Priced right. Guaranteed.

Online travel agencies do it, major hotel groups do it, and there is no reason why small hotel groups or individual properties should not do it: offer a Best Rate Guarantee, prominently placed on every page of your site.

In fact, if you would like to ensure that your newly welcomed prospect does not return to Expedia & Co. you will have to offer the same rate.

Better yet, if you can offer an incentive that makes the direct-booking with you just right now so irresistible attractive - and does not conflict with your existing rate parity agreements - go and offer it. And make sure you test which incentives work best.

Easy as one, two, three

Make no mistake, you will not successfully convert shoppers from Expedia & Co. without a booking-engine on your site that offers real-time availability and rates. If you currently don’t have one, get one - there are some great systems out there, that don’t cost a fortune anymore.

But don’t stop there. Prominently feature your phone number for those that feel more comfortable to book via phone or require additional assistance. Even better, target the millions of Skype users (a little program for making free calls over the internet) and prominently feature your “Skype Me” button on your pages.

Track it, fix it

Ideally, you have access to a website statistic program that tells you how many times somebody found its way to your site by searching for a combination of your “hotel name” and “destination” keywords in Google.

While that will not tell you if they finally also booked directly with you (unless you have connected your website statistic program with your booking-engine), it will at least over time give you a good feeling if your marketing campaign works and your getting your fair share of Expedia & Co. shoppers that are searching for your directly.

On the same time your website statistics will also tell you which pages they visited on your site and how quickly they left again. Use this data to work on your sites content focusing on lowering your single page access pages (these are the pages where visitors arrive and leave immediately without seeing any additional pages). The more time a visitor spends on your site the more likely she is to book with you.

And finally, while Expedia & Co. in some ways currently are to consumers what the Hotel & Travel Index in the good old days was to travel agents, chances are great that the big guys among online travel agencies are already heavily involved in counter strategies on how to capture a share of those visitors abandoning their booking-engines - like loyalty points or up selling the customer to packages with multiple travel components. Three out of ten is just too big a market to pass over. In the meantime, happy returns to you!

Markus Busch is the Editor/Publisher of HOTELMARKETING.COM and can be reached at “markus.busch at hotelmarketing.com”.

¹ PhoCusWright Inc.,"The PhoCusWright Consumer Travel Trends Survey Seventh Edition”