5 Tips for Making Direct Bookings the Dominant Revenue Source for Your Hotel

6 September, 2018

At ResAvenue, we firmly believe that hoteliers availing our hotel booking engine can increase their earnings exponentially if they harness its full potential. Going direct-to-customers will not only be less complicating, but more rewarding for your business as well. You will save huge costs on commissions payable to OTAs - the average commission charged by online travel agencies globally is estimated to be around 15% to 30% of the gross sales value.

Here are some valuable tips to drive more direct bookings and reap huge benefits for your business.

Tip#1: Make Your Website Mobile-Friendly
If your brand website has been designed specifically for desktop bookings and is still not responsive for mobiles and tabs, then there's a more than likely chance that most of your web visitors will not return to your page again, and you will miss out on potential selling opportunities. Hoteliers must ensure that their brand website is mobile-friendly, rich in content and optimized for search engines. With an integrated booking engine on your hotel website, your direct channel will be transformed into a powerful real-time sales engine. The ResAvenue team can work with you to build a fully customized responsive website, which is not only beautiful but designed to drive conversions of your web visitors into bookers.

Tip#2: Offer Guest Management Solutions
Building guest loyalty and driving repeat business are both crucial activities in the highly competitive hospitality sector. An effective guest management solution is the best way of engaging your guests while meeting these twin objectives. Guest management solutions not only drive incremental revenue, but also result in an increase in direct bookings for your properties. ResAvenue has developed an advanced guest management system that enables you to target your walk-in customers, direct web bookers, as well as your hotels' OTA customers. You can now offer differential pricing and promotions to your regular guests in order to boost customer retention, improve ratings and drive your hotel's direct bookings like never before!

Tip#3: Extend Discounts and Promotional Offers
Add value, attract attention and stimulate sales with enticing discounts and promotional offers on your booking engine itself. For instance, you can offer a flat discount of 15% on every room booking for a particular period or a free dinner for 2 persons for 'early bird' customers. From simple discounts for a defined period to long stays, early or last minute bookings, value added stay enrichments; ResAvenue makes it all possible. You can now offer promotions that your guests just cannot resist!

Tip#4: Collect Partial Payments
Another great way of increasing your direct sales is by collecting partial payments against reservations directly through your booking engine. This facility makes payments convenient for guests and allows you to close sales well in advance. ResAvenue now offers you the flexibility to collect partial payments against room reservations directly from your booking engine. Our Partial Payments feature helps optimise your cash flow while enhancing your business potential considerably.

Tip#5: Sell Directly on Social Media
With more than 2 billion users worldwide, Facebook offers excellent sales opportunities to hoteliers who wish to grow their business. You can promote and sell your hotel rooms, amenities, stay enrichments and packages directly to your fans, friends and followers from your brand's page on Facebook. ResAvenue enables you to drive direct sales from your hotel's Facebook page and augment your revenue stream substantially.

By now you may have realized that your booking engine is a much more powerful tool than you can ever imagine. The above tips will help you in harnessing much of its potential to gain more direct bookings, enhance profitability and grow your business like never before!