5 important points to consider while choosing OTA for Hotel

Choosing OTA for Hotel is an important and tricky task as we get most of the bookings from OTAs.

As per the World Trade Organisation, the international tourist arrivals will be over 1.56 billion by 2020

Most of these tourists will do their travel research online. They will book their hotels online.

And out of these online bookings, most of them will route to hotels via OTAs.

This makes OTAs so important for us. Without OTAs, we can end with unbooked rooms.

In other words, our revenue depends on OTAs. Hence, choosing OTA for Hotel is a sensitive task.

Ergo, we are discussing some important points that you must keep in mind while choosing OTA for Hotel.

Here are the points that I am going to discuss in this article.

• What audience you are willing to target
• What demography that OTA targets
• How is the experience of the customer with that OTA
• What features that OTA offers to you and the customers
• What is the commission that OTA charges

Let us now check each point in detail.

What audience you are willing to target

We can have multiple types of hotels like Airport Hotels, Business Hotels, Bed and Breakfast (B&B), Casino Hotels, Resorts, and Boutique Hotels.

Each kind of hotel targets a particular type of hotel.

Airport Hotels targets business travelers or those travelers whose flights are delayed or got canceled.

While BnBs targets guests in transit or on a leisure tour. Whereas a resort target travelers on exotic leisure tours.

Hence, each hotel has its own USP and targets a particular client base. So it is very important that the OTA that you are going to lost your hotel target that client base also.

If you and the OTA are not on the same page then that OTA will not get you the amount of booking you

What demography that OTA targets

Not only OTAs any business has its favorite region. They perform better in some regions than others.

The same is the case with OTAs. Some OTAs perform better at some locations and they have a better client base on that location.

For instance, Expedia performs better in the US market than the Indian market.

So we will have to align our client’s locations with these OTAs.

We will have to analyze our hotel’s client base and check from where most of our guests come.

Then we should target those OTAs who have a better client base on that location.

This will result in more bookings from that OTA.

How is the experience of the customer with that OTA

The most important thing that we have to take off is the reputation of that OTA in the market.

Does travelers like that particular OTA and how is their experience with it.

And for this, you will have to check out the review the platform has. What people are saying about it on online platforms.

Also, be very particular about their policies, and how easy is to make a cancellation on that agency. And how fast are the refunds?

All these factors contribute to your business. If an OTA does have a happy client base then how will it get you, customers?

What features that OTA offers to you and the customers

It is very important to check out the features they are providing to you and your guests.

You need some features to properly manage your business while your guests need them to search and book the hotels.

For example, you need a proper interface at their system so that you can create your hotels on their website and then add rooms to it.

Then you should have the option to manage the pricing and inventories.

The OTA should give out their APIs to channel managers so that you can synchronize the inventory and rates on various platforms.

Similarly, your guests need features like detecting their location, price filters, or star rating filters so that they can easily find the desired hotels.

What is the commission that OTA charges

The last point that I have on my list is the commission they are charging. But this is not a very linear relation.

We do not have to be judgemental. It does not mean that if an OTA is charging a high commission then we should avoid it.

We have to see the return on investment. There should be a perfect combination.

If an OTA is getting you a great number of clients and then even the margin per booking is less but the total revenue will be better.

Conclusion

We are targeting to achieve as many direct bookings as we can. But it is also true that our business largely depends on OTA.

Without OTAs, we will be at loss. So it is very important that we choose the right OTA for our hotel.

So these were the points that you should keep in mind while choosing OTA For Hotel. I hope they will help you.

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If you want to learn about the functionality of QloApps then you can visit this link: QLO Reservation System – Free Open-Source Hotel Booking & Reservation System

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