3 Ways to Drive More Direct Bookings

Your hotel website is the first impression to potential guests, therefore, it should be seamless if you want to drive bookings. There are many ways to enhance your website, but often overlooked are the features that help highlight trust and transparency in the booking process. Guest feedback and ratings, along with Triptease’s Price Check widget are both add-ons that help hotels showcase the information travelers need to make booking decisions. We took a closer look into these two tools to see how they link up.

Guest Feedback

Guest feedback is one of the most important factors behind a hotels’ authenticity. In fact, 95% of travelers are reading reviews prior to booking according to recent research. Another survey, taken in 2014, showed that 69% of hotel industry professionals in both the US and Australia see it as very important to their business. In spite of this, many hotels worldwide do not feature this add-on, but it’s clear hoteliers should consider optimising it if they want to keep up with the competition as made possible through companies like TrustYou. Including guest feedback on the hotel website allows for guests to publicly describe their stay openly and honestly, which has two advantages:

First, it exposes the truth about a given hotel to potential guests and this transparency creates trust between both parties, encouraging an eventual booking. TrustYou provides multiple widgets doing just this and in multiple formats to chose from. Second, constructive guest feedback can help hotels learn how to improve their services should guests comment negatively, building up a better product. Together this makes for a substantially more successful hotel with better guest relationships, which in turn earns it loyalty. Loyalty is a key factor in driving future direct bookings.

Price Check

In the same way that guest feedback works, Price Check creates transparency. However, instead of publishing a hotel review about room service or room cleanliness, Price Check allows travelers to see how a hotel’s official room rates compare with that of OTAs. When travelers reach the booking step, a clear drop-down list appears and shows the direct price against third-party pricing. Result? Transparency.

Sabre Hospitality Solutions carried out a case study on TripTease’s Price Check widget and found that it increased conversion rate by as much as 12%. Higher conversion means more direct bookings, which boosts revenue and cements trust between hotels and their guests.

The Direct Booking Summit

Speaking of booking direct, Triptease is hosting the very first Direct Booking Summit on the 30th of June. Given the fact that 2016 seems to be coined the year of direct bookings, we thought it might deserve a mention if you want to get on board this industry movement. Featuring a roster of speakers including Google, TripAdvisor, and Skyscanner, discussing topics on all things digital, information on website advancements, meta, and chatbots, it’s sure to be a transformative summer event. TripTease looks forward to delivering outstanding content and helping hoteliers come away with some handy tips to increase their direct bookings.