“Ahh the bookings just come in and we are happy with that.” You would be surprised how often I hear this when speaking with hotels. I speak with hotel clients daily and when you try to break down what % of bookings are coming from which sources, a lot of hotels do not know where their bookings are coming from. If this sounds like a familiar situation then stop reading this straight away and start pulling numbers!
From our experience we believe that hotels today can drive 60% of total bookings from their brand website and of that 40% can come through your own hotel website. It you don’t know where you are right now, then how can you know where you are going?
In order to figure out where you have an opportunity to grow your online revenue, firstly you need a clear picture of where your bookings are coming from. Once you have this, you can see what volume each channel is producing and can do a cost benefit analysis against each channel.
Now its time to look at your own hotel website and see where this fits in. Do you have an opportunity to drive more bookings through your own site? Look at what costs you have for each booking which comes to you directly. Bear in mind commission or the booking fee that your hotel is paying.
