Before talking about ways to increase your property direct bookings, you must believe that direct booking will be beneficial to your hotel. There are many benefits of direct booking to a hotelier. The most obvious one being that it will bring in more profits to your hotel and of course, less dependent on OTAs. It is important to note that, there is no magical strategy that will automatically increase your direct bookings. But rather your direct bookings will come as a result of applying some strategies which we are going to discuss in this article.
Read also: Benefits of Hotel Direct Booking
Create A User-Friendly and Responsive Website
It is important for a hotelier to understand that your hotel website plays an essential role in your direct booking strategy. Your website is the first place your guests will visit when they start searching for a hotel. Sometimes people discover your hotel on OTAs and then visit your website to gain a better understanding. Therefore, your website must be user-friendly and responsive. Besides, your website speed should also load fast. Your call to action buttons should be visible. Also, make sure that your booking engine is seamlessly integrated with the design of your website. Most importantly make sure your website has multi-language and multi-currency features. This will help to attract international guests to your hotel. Take into consideration these mentions features of your website and apply them.
Read also: What Should A Good Hotel Website Have?
Encourage Direct Booking on Facebook
You must also invest in a booking system that can accept booking on Facebook. You may ask why Facebook? Facebook is a social media platform with billions of users daily. Hence, there’s no reason why you should avoid Facebook to get direct booking. Most of your guests are on Facebook. They are constantly posting about their traveling plans and their destinations on Facebook. Use this opportunity to encourage your audience to book directly from your Facebook page while they are on Facebook. You can offer some incentives to motivate them. Make sure you have a good review on your Facebook page because potential guests will read your Facebook reviews. Also, engage with your followers, answer their questions, and be active on Facebook.
Read also: How Important is Facebook to Hotel and Homestay
Have A Mobile Responsive Website
As a hotelier who is serious about increasing your hotel direct booking. You need to have a mobile responsive website. This is because most people do their room booking on their smartphones. Smartphones or any mobile gadgets have changed the way people are searching for information. Travelers now rely heavily on mobile technology for their day-to-day activities. Thus, having a mobile responsive website that is user-friendly is a smart move.
Read also: Mobile Friendly Hotel Website
Offer Direct Booking Discounts
Sometimes guests are reluctant to book directly from your website and Facebook pages. They will visit your website, check out your room rate, and availability. Yet, they still don't book your room. As a hotelier, you can offer some incentives like discounts, promo codes or special packages to encourage them to book directly from you. Who doesn’t like special prices? Offering discounts, promo code or special packages may encourage reluctant guests to book directly from you.
Be At The Top Search
Learn about how you can be at the top search of the search engines. Grow your presence on metasearch engines. This will help to increase your brand awareness, which will result in more hotel direct bookings. You can apply hotel content marketing by creating powerful content that can attract more curious visitors to your hotel.
Read also: Reasons Why Every Hotelier Should Embrace Hotel Content Marketing
To Conclude
Hotel direct bookings can bring in more guests to your hotel if you’re able to implement them strategically. Optimize your dependency on OTAs and start generating revenues through direct booking now!
Read also: How to Optimize OTA to Improve Hotel Direct Booking?
