Stop Throwing Money Away! 5 Direct Booking Mistakes Costing You Big

Historically, most independent properties and small chains relied on third parties to deliver business to them. Many are still behind the curve, relying too heavily on third parties and OTAs. Don’t let your hotel fall into these common traps:

⛔𝗢𝗧𝗔𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗼𝗼 𝗽𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗿𝗳𝘂𝗹 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗼𝗻: Max Starkov recently pointed out in a post that OTAs on average spend 250 USD per hotel per month at the most. The more money they make from you, the more powerful you are making them against you.

⛔𝗡𝗼𝘁 𝗴𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗼𝗻 𝗱𝗶𝗴𝗶𝘁𝗮𝗹 𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴: Having a user-friendly website with a robust booking engine that is being fed qualified traffic to strategic digital marketing spend is easier than ever. Get started, learn, improve, and optimise. 

⛔𝗧𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝘀𝗲𝗴𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀 𝗱𝗼 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗺𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿: If you offer 40% lower rate to your wholesale partner and have all kinds of specials like member rates, POS, campaign offer etc. on OTAs, that will stand in the way of your direct booking strategy. 

⛔𝗚𝗶𝘃𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝗼𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗺𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗮 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝗻 𝗦𝗘𝗠 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗮𝘀𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵: Understand the funnel. Social media is an upper funnel activity more suited to awareness building. Spend more on search ads and metasearch to make most of your online ad spend. 

⛔𝗡𝗼𝘁 𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗸𝘀: Most hoteliers are too scared to take chances with their OTAs and agent partners. If you are not able to offer at least the same rates and value, if not better, you are not allowing your partners to bring you incremental business that was not headed to you in the first place. 

A shift in perspective is needed from time to time to keep your motivation on direct strategy up. Time to double down as you have more tools available to build your direct business.

What else do you think hotels are doing wrong in terms of attracting more direct business?