These days everything is online. You can book a doctor’s appointment, a big trip, or a rental car right from your computer screen within minutes. The ease of having everything one click away has changed our world in big ways! If you are a hotelier, you’ll need to use online booking tools to your advantage to keep up with the competition. Not only is online booking the new standard, but an online platform for your hotel comes with many new advantages as far as marketing and sales.
Importance of a Hotel’s Online Presence
It wasn’t so long ago that hotels did not have an online presence at all, and folks had to work with a travel agent or call around to find out which hotel had the best rates or the amenities they were looking for. Now, the power is in the consumer’s hands thanks to rapidly developing technology over the past few decades.
However, online self-booking also puts the power in the hotel’s hands to upgrade its online presence. Digital marketing in the hotel industry is new but has already made great strides in this industry.
An online booking system can help your hotel garner new bookings in so many ways, such as:
- Being available 24/7. Online booking platforms don’t take time off or have lunch breaks. You no longer need to burden your hospitality staff with the administrative work of bookings. An online booking system does this for you in a much more efficient way.
- Business insights. With online bookings, you can get a lot of information from the customer that you may have not gotten in an over-the-phone booking. Things like location, age, where they found you on the web, and more will be tied to their guest card, making it easier for you to track data and tailor the hotel’s online marketing strategy based on data you receive.
- Easier and faster payments. With online bookings, you can make it so the guest has paid a large portion, or in some cases the whole charge, before they even step through the doors at the hotel. This minimizes your risk and helps increase revenue, all the while reducing the workload for your staff.
- Special requests made easy. Guests can make special requests for their stay right on the reservation page, making it easier for you to prepare for each guest’s arrival and boosting customer satisfaction rates.
Online hotel bookings come with many practical perks. It’s no wonder why nearly every hotel is implementing them in some way!
Different Mediums of Selling Hotel Inventory Online
When it comes to your listings for your hotel online, you want to make sure they get the eyes of the most prospective customers possible. Due to this, hotel website marketing has become a whole field of study! Digital marketing in the hospitality industry is expected to become more crucial as more hotels enter the online space and competition becomes tighter!
Setting up your hotel’s website so that it’s capable of online booking is the first step. However, the next step is equally important: How will prospective guests find your hotel online? This is when you need to employ multiple mediums of marketing to get the most reach. There are many mediums you can try when it comes to selling your hotel inventory online.
- Varied streams of advertisement. Apart from your hotel website, there are other strong hotel internet marketing channels that you should take advantage of. Linking your hotel to its own social media page(s), such as Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, or even TikTok, can extend your reach to more people.
- Highlight your events and special services. If your hotel offers special events and services to guests, such as cocktail hours or complimentary spa tickets for guests, you’ll want to include that in your online presence. Oftentimes, guests are coming from far away and may not be familiar with the great services you offer.
- A global audience, regardless of your location. Even if your hotel is in a remote or rural area, hotel digital marketing allows you to put your hotel on a global scale, garnering more interested customers from around the world.
- Take advantage of SEO tactics. When someone searches for a hotel in a certain location using a standard Internet search engine, hundreds to thousands of results will pop up. Using SEO tactics in your blogs and social media presence, you can ensure your hotel is at the top of the list when someone punches in that next online search!
- Use OTAs. Online travel agencies, such as Airbnb or Expedia, are here to stay. Using a channel manager, you can easily post your hotel listings on multiple channels outside of your main website, boosting reach and garnering more bookings.
There are many ways to maximize your online presence if you are a modern-day hotel. You will need to know your target demographic as well as other data to make smart marketing choices. That’s why some hotel owners may choose to hire a hospitality marketing agency, which has professionals who can do all of this for you, with the experience to know what marketing channels will work for your unique location and amenities.
How and Why a Channel Manager Helps Manage Online Bookings
A hotel channel management system is an important piece of ensuring you are making the most of your online booking system. These online systems allow the listing and sale of rooms across many different platforms, all at the same time. When a specific room is booked, the information is automatically updated across all listing sites to avoid availability issues or double booking.
A hotel channel manager can provide real-time updates across all online booking platforms. On the back end, the hotel will use a centralized dashboard that allows them to see their booked rooms, vacancies, availability, services booked, and more. This system integrates all features and moving pieces onto one central software, making it easier for hotel owners and staff to get an overview of their operations.
A hotel channel manager allows you to integrate all your OTA (online travel agency) listings, such as those on third-party sites like Booking.com, Expedia, Airbnb, and many more. Without an integrated hotel channel manager, these OTA listings may go unchecked, which is a huge mistake. These sites are known and loved by travelers, and are often used to compare hotels in real-time. You want to make sure these listings are accurate, represent your offerings, and are easy to find. A hotel channel manager helps you do just that!
The channel manager system also easily integrates with your PMS, combining data across channels and bringing it to your main platform, so you can run day-to-day property operations with greater insight and ease.
How Channel Managers and Web-Booking Engines Help You Garner More Online Sales
Your hotel’s website is one thing but ensuring your hotel’s website works across multiple channels and has a fully integrated web booking system is what’s important.
Instead of only listing open rooms on your website, a channel management system can help you list your booking across several websites, such as OTAs, all at once. Creating a diverse sales network for your hotel only increases your potential for new guests and more revenue. The channel manager lets you increase your reach without increasing your workload. Given that the channel manager can seamlessly integrate and update in real-time, you’ll never have to worry about double bookings or inaccurate listings on any website.
Web booking engines make these bookings possible. Your web booking engine should be optimized for an easy and secure guest experience when they book a room with you. By having both a channel management system and a secure web booking platform, in addition to using a hotel online marketing strategy to boost your reach, you can enjoy a lucrative increase in sales as well as happier guests. Hint: happy guests usually book again!
Conclusion
Using the powerful tools in the hotel online marketing industry today, you can boost sales and customer satisfaction. Using tools like a property management system, integrated with a channel manager and web booking engine, you can greatly enhance your reach without making more work for yourself. These tools are integral for a hotel to be successful and profitable.
