A V Continent's guest room: El Sherif says he thinks of his website as an extra salesperson. A V Continent's guest room: El Sherif says he thinks of his website as an extra salesperson.

Upselling
A major advantage of converting bookings through your own website is the ability to promote additional property facilities — perhaps through exclusive bundle deals. “An area that is often forgotten is the ability to convert sales of spa treatments, activities and food and beverage outlets through the promotion of these areas on hotel websites. In the UAE our properties are very activity focused due to their location on an island, desert and city mangrove area,” explains Anantara’s Cadena.

However, it’s not only hotels with relatively remote locations that can drive promotions and extra services on their direct booking channels. “The client will be introduced to other facilities in the hotel rather than just a room booking, hence, there are opportunities of selling other facilities to the same client which will drive more revenue to the hotel,” adds V Five Continents’ El Sherif.

Sabre’s Barder explains that its Guest Connect offers “dynamic packaging, allowing hotels to bundle different products and services to drive incremental revenue”. El Sherif also adds that this upselling is not limited to the single property, if it’s part of a chain — services at other nearby hotels can be recommended while booking, or if the selected property is at full occupancy, it can direct potential guests to another sister property.

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ROI
For all of their benefits, booking engines and well-designed websites aren’t cheap, but they are part of a business decision on how to progress with your online selling strategy. Beg explains: “Booking engines can be expensive but it depends on the CRS used; however, a return on investment can easily be calculated.”

Agel advises that ROI “should be measurable” within three to four months, but “we have seen cases where the initial investment has been covered only after a couple of days”.

Barder adds: “A large percentage of hotel website traffic comes from OTAs first. So hotels looking to increase online direct sales really need to have an easy-to-find, appealing website with a strong booking engine if they are to effectively convert traffic from OTAs.” And one needs to ask — which hotels don’t want to convert traffic from OTAs?

If, however, you don’t have the funds to dive straight in for a complete online revamp, our experts explain that the booking engine, above a sleek and sophisticated website, is where to invest.

“In many cases an attractive site is not what drives the booking conversions but rather action driven websites,” Cadena explains.

“Without question it is a good investment to have an effective booking engine as the biggest part of the booking conversion happens in the last steps of the booking process. If the booking process is too complicated, the user will leave the process and book on an OTA.”

A hotel’s website is more than an online placeholder informing potential guests about the brand’s mission statement and the names of restaurants they can expect to visit if they book — it should be an integral part of the hotel’s sales and marketing strategy.

As El Sherif says: “I consider the hotel’s website as my extra sales person that is reaching markets that I cannot reach and visiting my clients at their home no matter where on earth they are, hence, this sales person has to be properly equipped with tools to sell and certainly has to have targets to achieve so I can evaluate his performance.”

The next stage
In this series, we have now covered search engine optimisation strategies, and how to then keep potential guests on your site, in order for them to book directly and increase your revenue. Next month, we look at the hot topic of emerging mobile technologies, which are booming with no signs of slowing down. Don’t miss this essential guide to the products available and how to tailor them to your needs.

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