1. First we should understand what OTA is?
OTA stands for Online Travel Agent, which deals hotel room on the internet. This agent is different from the traditional Agent because it is the only business on the internet environment.
2. Why should hotels partner with OTAs?
Internet is one inevitable trend that the whole world is following. All transactions and searches are made through internet even when you buy one pair of shoes you also need Google to search. Therefore the internet is a necessity and business on the internet is obvious to contribute to the process of business planning strategy.
If hotels have their website then why do they need OTA? Certainly, some the GM or Direct of Sale and Marketing wonder, here are some suggestions to answer this question
– Considering OTA as marketing channel for our hotel. Imagine if users search our hotel on Google, and the result will be present at all websites so users will more easily book our hotel.
– Cost: if we want your website available in all countries, we have to invest more money in online marketing. However, if we cooperate with their OTA, they will be marketing to our hotel (obviously along with other hotels, but we will discuss in the following section). Then we will get benefits from this marketing, even if visitors only refer without booking, we won’t lose any cost.
3. How to be effective with the OTA?
Updating your hotel on OTA, loading hotel room price are not the final stage. We must constantly keep track of the daily and monthly book, to capture the needs of each target area. Recommend his appointment of representatives of the OTA about January 3 times and asked them to give us the report on impression volume, conversion, and tend to your flight booking. You should make an appointment with OTA representatives every 3 months and request reports on the volume of impression, conversion and booking trend, which means booking for the next 3 months, one month or at the last minute, or else booking for 2 nights or 3 nights. Basing on these statistics, we will coordinate with the OTA to provide the appropriate price to attract more customers than competitors.
You should do this regularly and coordinate with OTA as much as possible because they know the prices as well as the strengths and weaknesses of your rival hotel right on the OTA website, then they can advise us on suitable pricing strategy, because they also get benefit.
Conclusions: Updating your hotel on the OTA is not the final stage. We need to closely coordinate with the OTA to capture the trend of customers and competitors. Your hotel should use the service to check the prices of competitors on the different OTAs to capture your opponent’s moves if you have enough condition.
