We spent a bit of money recently to attend a ‘direct booking summit’ in Cape Town which I could only compare to one these ‘churches’ with people pouring money in the hope for things to turn around.
An apparent heavy-hitting panel was the drawing card to collect your money in an attempt to discuss six agenda items ‘in depth’. We felt we should let our views be expressed in a humble way via this write-up. Our views are simply opinion and in no way an attempt to discredit or defame the persons giving me motivation to do this small article.
This drive of direct business and regaining your inventory from OTA’s stems from the same opposite by giving the OTA’s you inventory initially. Thus we cannot seem to control our stock or seemingly paying to much in commissions. The ‘hot topic’ of getting ‘your (stock) back’ became a talking point when one could simply reverse the process of giving the stock in the first place. i.e. don’t pay their commission, increase their rate stupidly high or delete all your images ?! why pay someone to tell you this?
so here are the topics: (remember people paid for this): the modern shopper: relates to using the internet, more shoppers using mobile, and instant confirmation. Also: how shopper behaviour have changed. Like this happened late last year and not 10+ years ago already. Using social media: after long discussions the essence was: using it as a marketing tool. Not much in the ‘how to’ and ‘why’. More about traffic, conversion, bounce rates and back links would have been a nice-to-have. Innovative advertising relating to direct bookings and word of mouth. basically guest reviews and they should not be poor. Regaining customer relations : like we are in Japan and a robot checks you in! here we deal with an effective guest review system, manual or automated. Wifi marketing: offers on landing pages and inhouse marketing via TV, apps etc to increase guest engagement. Lastly Revenue converting direct bookers into big spenders.
Doesn’t something look wrong? the last 4 out of six is for guests that you already captured/gained/received? How does this help us drive direct sales?
We will give you free advice without time away from the office! So here it is:
- ensure you own website have rate disparity, yes: lower rate.
- ensure your own website have product & availability disparity: yes close out the OTA in high demand and sell the last room direct
- have more lenient cancellation policy on your own site
- offer value adds the OTA’s aren’t able to host on the website
- get an analytics account from Google, its free, follow their advice and watch your traffic
- ensure your own site is open and bookable 24/7. sounds silly but yes, it needs to work.
- post a blog, update a news letter, post a picture or something, once a week. Use free sites like Buffer to update on one platform and link all your social media accounts. Always add your own website for back link
- email marketing, use WhatsApp for business launched last month, call them on the phone!
if you get 10% of your total revenue direct, you are doing well. Why so little? because most of ‘us’ don’t have the money to spend in SEM like BCOM or EXP have, so just give it up now already don’t follow (and pay) false prophets (there are a couple of international software suppliers selling the same thing) just be aware and look after yourself..
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Bye for now.
