It took almost over a decade for OTAs to reach the position they have acquired in the travel industry.
The OTAs have learned a lot about how to engage with travelers, how to understand their needs, how to help them to search and provide information which was previously a time-consuming task.
For this reason, OTAs are an affecting platform to market properties to increase occupancy. Optimizing your hotel profile will result in maximizing the presence on OTA.
In this blog, you will help you in improving the profiles and to benefit from the OTA traffic.
To increase the effectiveness of OTA performance you need to have a complete profile. An up-to-date profile shows that how professional your hotel in its approach.
Content such as photos, recent information, and room amenities must be listed on clearly. Take special care of the photos and videos, as professionally shot images or videos will attract more travelers.
Many travelers also use filters to get hotel information according to their preferences. Thus it becomes even more important to mention the amenities like free wifi or parking.
It is also essential to provide as much detail about the check-in, check-out time and cancellation policies. Only a few will book when you have a left out most of the information about your hotel.
Guest reviews have a healthy impact on the OTA rankings of hotels. Why? Because a property with a large number of reviews attracts more guests than other hotels with fewer reviews.
Almost 92% of people on OTA highly believe reading reviews before booking. These reviews are reliable as these are experiences of guests who have stayed at the property.
Responding to the reviews is also another task you must be committed to strictly. The way you handle positive reviews and approach the negative reviews also impact their booking decisions.
Be professional while engaging with negative reviews and invite a guest to resolve the issues offline.
There are thousands of hotels listed in OTAs that means there is a high competition between them to rank higher in search results. To increase the visibility of your hotel you can opt for ads or pay-per-click campaigns to optimize the profile.
It is helpful for small and mid-sized hotels to get more exposure. When the rank of your hotel is low, these ads assist you in listing higher as compared to the organic listing.
One more crucial factor in maintaining a good hotel profile on OTA is shared the room availability and rates in real time.
When the OTA profile is regularly updated this usually boosts the occupancy rate. Through a channel manager, you can update the necessary details automatically over several OTAs and that too simultaneously.
Therefore, keeping the room information will help you avoid overbooking. On the contrary, with an accurate hotel profile, you will enjoy higher rank and conversion.
Although paid ad campaign doesn’t guarantee to increase occupancy rate it lets gain more chances to get more bookings.
You can ask OTAs to get yourself in contact with their marketing managers. They are highly trained individuals who have extensive knowledge of the hotel marketing.
They will help you in understanding the trends that are being followed in your location, what packages will attract tourist towards your hotel, guide you to the targeted ads etc.
By working with the market managers small and mid-sized hotels will get a substantial advantage of their experience.
At the end of the day, we know that OTAs are a great tool for marketing. Being ready with an accurate and up-to-date OTA profile will help you achieve the additional bookings from a wider group of travelers.
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