Today, the hotel business market poses new challenges for hoteliers. The number of Internet sites is growing, as is the competition. To stay afloat and not lose guests, you need to keep your finger on the pulse of events all the time and master new business development tools. How can you swim and not drown in the rapidly changing sea of supply and demand? We're telling you.
More sales channels — more guests
Many customers get used to using the same app to find and book vacation destinations (and many of them are different). Therefore, it is important to use the widest possible range of electronic platforms in order to reach a large audience. This will help both maintain the growth in workload and manage it competently during the off-season. The rule of good taste today is "do not keep eggs in one basket" — do not use one or two platforms, but move along a broader path. If there is a technical failure or conditions change in one of the applications, you can be found in the other.
Internet — "our everything"
With the development of technology, the Internet has become the main sales channel for hotels. What is the best way to use it? First, pay attention to the large online travel agencies (OTA). These are well-known Yandex.Travel", "Island", "Armored car", 101Hotels, "Ozone", " <url>". The advantages are that they can afford massive advertising, so the majority of the audience knows and trusts them. The disadvantages are the high commission for hoteliers (from 7% to 22%) and the need to monitor and manage rates.
Secondly, identify the niche of your business and, based on this, choose a specialized site. Do you have a resort hotel? Aim for two goals, "a vacation by the sea" and "a trip with children." An apartment near an exhibition or business center? Promote business tourism, and so on.
And, of course, no application cancels the availability of your hotel's website. Many guests, when searching for travel destinations, go from the application to the website to find out the possibilities of additional discounts or flexible booking conditions, to see more photos. In addition, your website is a great opportunity to form a base of loyal guests (who will leave you their contacts) and trusting relationships, which leads to repeated returns (all hoteliers would like that, right?). Therefore, make the booking on the website workable and convenient.
And don't forget about working with tour operators and corporate clients — this is a great strategy, especially helpful in the off-season.
Which Shelter PMS products will help with this?
With its help, you can connect up to 50 of the most popular sites in the country, including Avito, Otello, OneTwoTrip, etc. Channel Manager is used by more than a thousand hoteliers, and you can try the product for free. With it, you can not only immediately see reservations in your personal account, but also change the price at the same time on all sites — or according to your needs.
The Channel Manager is synchronized with the data of online travel agencies. If a room is booked in one of the applications, the service will immediately update the data for the others. This way, you don't have to visit dozens of sites to adjust the data.
Plus, you can add an online booking module to the website without additional commission and arrange fast and secure payment acceptance.
Let's eat the elephant piece by piece!
Having thought about connecting sales channels, you should not immediately rush into the pool of online commerce and run to register on all available platforms. Firstly, you don't have enough time for this, and secondly, you don't have enough hands. Try different strategies, especially since the Shelter PMS system allows it.
After a while, you will understand what is beneficial for your business, and how to move on — go to new sites, or develop existing ones.
Subscribe to our channel to be the first to learn about the trends of the hotel market and the best management practices — and we wish you good sales!
