6 Actionable Tips To Increase Direct Hotel Bookings

Undoubtedly, direct bookings are crucial in building a high RevPAR for your hotel business. It allows you to interact with guests and provide exceptional personalized experiences. It also saves you good money, which you would be losing out on commissions on various OTAs.

Getting more direct booking for your hotel is not rocket science. All you need is to have a strategy in place, and eventually, you will start seeing results.

Here are some ways to rely less on commission charging sources lie OTA or meta-search for your bookings and increase your hotel’s direct bookings:

1. Create a Stunning, Use-friendly Website

Your website is the face of your business online and is the first thing that a customer will look out for before booking. You need to invest in building a seamless website that showcases your features and has SEO-friendly content and a strong call-to-action. It must be lucrative enough to transform your visitors into customers.

2. Make the best use of digital marketing

The digital era demands modern digital marketing. If you want to boost your direct sales, you need to build a powerful digital marketing muscle. Leverage the best digital marketing elements and be visible in the online space. Target your advertisements to the right audience through social media. Promote offers that bring inbound leads and boost your hotel’s direct bookings.

3. Build customer relationships that last forever

Give your guests customized treatment, so they will always rebook with you. You can re-engage with them by marketing the best discounts and offers via mail or social media like Whatsapp. You can also start a loyalty program that provides special benefits for customers who rebook with you directly.

4. Up your Social Media Game

If you want to engage with your customers and build relationships to boost your brand reputation and presence, you need social media. You must invest in creating insightful, engaging social media content and promote them on various platforms. Understand the algorithms and optimize your content accordingly. Don’t forget to use the right hashtags and a powerful call to action.

5. Emphasize personalized Guest treatment

Personalized customer experience lasts forever. A simple upgrade on a guest’s birthdays/anniversaries or fulfilling the guest requests can strike the right chord with your guests. A satisfied guest will bring in a high number of referrals, and increase your direct booking rate.

6. Always respond to users online

Every community forum and OTA for open platforms where your guests can rate and review your hotel. Your future guests rely on such sites for assurance to get maximum value for the money they invest in you. You can have a manager that responds to the comments and answers the queries on such open platforms. You can also leverage Google Alerts to get an email, every time a user tags your hotel on any of the social media platforms. All these efforts culminate in creating a reliable brand reputation and bringing in a high hotel booking rate.

Conclusion

If you want to earn profits from your business, you must decrease your dependency on commission=charging platforms and invest in building a powerful brand online. However, you must keep the Total RevPAR in check and track the commission and individual marketing expenses. Leverage the one with the least expense and means(Cost of acquisition).