With OTA resurging I was bombarded with the below suggestions. Instead of blindly following I took the time to critically think about it for a moment:

Here are their suggestions:

• Black Friday is back – attract guests with a discount they can’t resist
• End the year with a boost in bookings You’ll get a Travel Offer badge on X.com, have your discounted price appear on price comparison sites like Google, and be featured in marketing campaigns.
• Try a completely flexible basic deal Whether you’re changing strategies to help your business recover demand or looking to take advantage of seasonal traffic, a basic deal is fully customizable to fit your exact business needs.
• Fill your occupancy in advance with an Early 2021 Deal
• Secure stable revenue with a monthly rate plan
• Boost your bookings with an extra 10% Genius discount
• Keep up with evolving travel trends by creating an early booker deal (in contrast with next point?)
• Take advantage of the recent upswing in last-minute bookings as they look for a quick escape after being locked down, more customers than usual are booking at the last-minute. You can benefit from this change in customer behaviour by creating a last-minute deal.
• Reach more guests with a weekly rate plan
• Grow revenue by converting the policy of your flexible rate plans. Many uncertain travellers are looking for extra flexibility due to the coronavirus (COVID-19), so we’re making it easier for them to find properties that allow for longer free cancellation. Converting your flexible rate plans to “Flexible – 1 day” is easy, will help attract more bookings now, and make your property more appealing in the long run.

What is the common thread in the above?

1. Discount, upon discount, and more discount
2. Reduced barriers to entry (addressing objections that may hinder a sale – objections to rate, restrictions and payment/cancellation policies)
3. Making unsupported statements
4. Making empty promises

The one and only OTA goal: own your inventory with a rate advantage

• They hide their true intentions with deceiving yet enticing text. (clever sales copy skills)
• They make it as easy as humanly possible for a user to activate their suggestions (programming / a funnel)
• They hide the fact that deals stack (on the suggestions page at least)
• After this they will search ‘popular’ dates to find disparity and penalize you. Their rate shoppers are coded to FIND rate disparity (not ignore it), therefor in the million possible search combinations of room rate, types, dates, occupancies, meal plans & policies there WILL be disparity
• They appear to ‘advertise’ you but they instead bid higher on your property’s name and own the traffic looking for your establishment

COVID-19 revealed their intentions

• They cancelled your business and instructed a refund without consult to their supply
• Their production came to a dead stop
• They retrenched staff, some working there as long as 12 years in senior roles (I personally know of 2). They done this in the name of profit
• When restriction was eased properties that could open contacted guests direct, properties were somewhat successful. Those who deeply committed to regaining guests were very successful. The point: we (hotels/guesthouses/etc.) are able to improve direct sales as we simply had no other option.
• We have at least top 10 performing clients in CPT on BDC, all preferred, genius, green in ranking criteria, rates parity, conversion, availability, ADR etc, but ranked in the 100’s. When you ask them why? They will say you don’t have a promo…your compset is outperforming you and more generic responses that they KNOW you cannot counter due to no supporting stats available in the extranet.

We are in a position of strength now:

• OTA production is still small
• Their workforce is reduced
• We have the clients and the direct traffic
• We have worked on our own websites and booking engines and we need to keep it a priority
• We need to keep our own site the best priced always!
• How do we continue to hold this position? ( because in time the OTA dominance will resurface.)
• Double up unpaid/free marketing – generic organic posts to database at least 1 x week
• Do NOT give OTA promos or fall for their tactics, look at your stats and think about it, apply common sense. Their business will not stop without promos
• You make the cheapest rooms/rate available on your own site ONLY
• You claim your name by advising the relevant OTA they are not allowed to bid on your property name. (this way your own site will rank on top) How to? 1. It is preferable if hotels negotiate directly with the online travel agency “in a friendly way” its prohibition of bidding on the hotel’s brand names. Lots of chains do this already 2.The other alternative is to ask Google to stop posting ads with the hotel’s name

Learn how to market your property online yourself by taking one of our courses on https://hotel-revenue-manager.com/training/ including Tiktok! Leverage this channel now!

We will be introducing more training like the above info and give you real advice, not generic cookie cutter info from a book written 10 years go!

My Best

Jaco