Having a website is essential. Today, the 60% for leisure travelers and 41% for business travelers make their travel arrangements online. Therefore, we must know how to make the most of the huge market for online reservations.
All travelers do some kind of research before setting out on a trip and will never miss the opportunity to review the wide variety of offers on the web and choose the ones that best suit their needs, preferences and expectations. As a hotelier, offer the possibility of reserving both the room and some other ancillary, through your website will be of vital importance to take travelers to your destination.
In addition to taking advantage of very important distribution channels such as Expedia or Booking.com, having a good website for your hotel represents a real competitive advantage that will allow you to take care of every detail of your presentation and achieve a better conversion rate for your visits.
Now, we are going to explain in more detail why focusing on a good direct channel is the best online sales strategy you can have this year:
1. It's your cover letter
The website is the digital gateway to your hotel. If you can't impress a guest online, then they'll assume your hotel doesn't have anything exciting to offer.
Remember that a website is not only a platform with information, but a communication channel and in most cases, the first place where a traveler looks for information about a hotel to get to know it: from its photographs, location and services it offers, even how to contact to reserve.
Therefore, the site as a whole should represent the personality and mission of your hotel. Each page must have a coherent style: the font, the colors and the photographs contribute to the tone we want to convey. It can be a sophisticated and luxurious appearance, or a vibe that connects us with an idea of a relaxed vacation and in contact with nature. The site should be easy to navigate, with a simple menu, visible links, and a quick and super intuitive checkout process.
In this way, nowadays, it is not enough to have a website: it is necessary to consider that the design is attractive, that the photographs are professional and contribute to highlighting the quality of the accommodation, that it is responsive to adapt to any mobile device and -Finally- that allows the user to have the best browsing and booking experience.
For this, in Guru Hotel we put at your disposal a premium service of professional photographs for your hotel, through our partner FOTEC.
FOTEC is already part of our Marketplace and you can benefit from their packages at a special price. This, with the aim of enhancing the image of your property and having a more competitive digital profile.
2. Complete your advertising strategy in Online Travel Agencies
However, there is a great controversy between hotels that have their own website and those that only rely on online agencies. Although there is no one strategy that works for everyone, the best one will be the one that suits your needs.
In accordance with Travel Daily News, 52% of Online Travel Agency visitors seek to enter the hotel's website directly, to receive more information about the property and what it offers, so hotels should take this opportunity to convert most of this traffic in direct bookings.
Finally, having a website for your hotel, in addition to having visibility in metasearch engines and online travel agencies, offers you the opportunity to have a greater reach among different audiences and, therefore, a greater possibility of conversions and reservations.
3. Add value to your visitors
A website has many advantages, as it presents general hotel information to users and also allows you to offer much more to add value to your visitors.
Unlike online travel agencies and price comparison sites, on a website you can really detail and inquire into the unique advantages of your hotel. For example, add a presentation of amenities, an events calendar, special offers, hotel and destination attractions, as well as the unique solutions that define the character of the hotel.
Your potential guests will appreciate that you reveal your history, available attractions, distinctive features of your hotel, conference opportunities, restaurant offerings, among many other things that help make their decision to stay much easier. with you.
Don't forget to highlight the advantages of booking directly on your site, such as offering an additional breakfast package, having a loyalty program to get free nights, or other additional benefits. Rest assured that your visitors will love it!
4. It's a great digital tool
A website is a powerful tool to position yourself in search engines and to obtain data and valuable information about who visits you, since the connection with such valuable traffic measurement tools as Google Analytics, for example, allows to obtain a large amount information about guests: their behavior, activities, frequency of visits, time spent on the website, conversion rate, etc.
This data will help you to get to know your audience and their travel trends well, which will allow you to implement appropriate marketing solutions adapted to the activity, preferences, comments and suggestions of the guests.
5. They promote direct bookings
Finally, it is clear that nowadays the increase in direct sales is one of the greatest challenges among hotels. With the growing popularity of Online Travel Agencies, the commissions that have to be paid for being intermediaries of reservations also increase.
For large chains this may not be an inconvenience, but for small independent hotels, limiting these variable costs can represent a significant improvement in terms of profitability. In this way, by having a direct sales channel, we can build a closer relationship with the customer and continue to send communications and offers to retain them.
Now that you know all the reasons and advantages of having a good website, register on our platform and launch a powerful ecommerce for your hotel in a couple of clicks.
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