Using Online Travel Agencies (OTAs)

These third party booking agents allow you to list your product on their sites and facilitate the bookings through them e.g. Booking.com, Hotels.com, Expedia.com and Trivago.com, as well as local operators. However, ensure that you are comfortable with their commission rates, and terms and conditions. 

Increasingly users are turning to OTAs to book things to do so it is important for attractions, experiences, activities and tours to be listed on the sites relevant to them. 

They make their money from commissions, and their rates vary from 10% to 30% of the holidaymaker’s stay. Depending on the OTA you are going to work with, you need to be sure that this investment is a good strategy in relation to your business needs.

Before you decide whether or not to use these channels there are some facts (rather than myths) you should consider: 

Advantages 

• Production - whether you like the fact or not, once you start working with these channels, they will fill your rooms 
• Exposure - they should be seen as a marketing cost as no other method of marketing will expose your property to as many potential customers as OTA’s 
• You can update the content that is displayed to potential customers
• Having an online instant booking option means you are accessible for potential customers to book 24/7 from anywhere in the world 

Disadvantages 

• Commissions - will cost anywhere between 10%-30%
• Allocations - Some OTA’s will demand an allocation of rooms before you can join their programme. In reality this can mean an allocation of 2 rooms on a 3 day release (meaning they only give these rooms back to you if they don’t sell, 3 days before arrival). If you are a hotel, this may seem like a small price to pay but let’s look at one scenario: You have a group in for a Saturday night next month – you are fully booked and therefore cannot accept any direct bookings. However an OTA has an allocation of 2 rooms, which means that a customer can actually get better availability with an OTA than they can directly with you. 

All of that said, property owners need to weigh-up all of the disadvantages against the advantages of these OTA’s actually delivering bookings.  

Reality is that as an industry we should see the OTA’s as partners and not something to fight against. We just need to ensure we contract correctly and don’t give too much away. 

OTA’s are affectively a search engine and if customers do browse on Booking.com or Expedia there is also a high possibility (some say over 80%) that they will come to your own site to check rates. This is where we as property owners need to be clever: 

• Do you have a website customers can visit? 
• Is it easily found on major search engines such as Google or Bing? 
• Is your site less than two years old with the latest technology and design? 
• Is your site mobile friendly? 
• Is your site easy to navigate? 
• Can you actually book on your brand site? 
• Can customers find where to book easily? 
• Do you have the very best availability on your own website? 
• Do you have the best rates available on your own website? 
• Do you have unique packages available that you won’t find on any other third party? 
• Is your booking process secure? 
• Are customers receiving automated confirmations? 
• Do you have messaging on your brand website / email signature and all marketing that tells customers that it is better to Book Direct 

Meta Sites 

Meta Sites, such as Trivago, Travelsupermarket.com, Skyscanner, TripAdvisor and Cheapflights basically are price comparison sites and they will crawl other OTA websites and present your properties price on 5 or 6 channels to a customer so they can see which OTA is displaying the best price. As you can see, having Rate Parity on all OTA channels is important. If you want your own brand website to be presented to the customer, you need to pay. This payment is on a Pay Per Click basis and you pay that Meta Site whether a booking is actually made or not. 

The advantage is that you have less of a risk of being booked on an OTA which the Meta Site has displayed if your brand site is shown, but you also risk being charged a fee for a click that doesn’t actually convert to a booking 

The world of the OTA’s, Meta-Sites and the impact of other booking sources such as AirBnB is changing almost daily. However, what we as an industry need to realise is that they are here to stay and the impact of these channels is something we can’t afford to ignore.

TED Programme Workshop - Understanding Online Travel Agents (OTAs) and Bedbanks Distribution 

This event took place as part of the Tourism Enterprise Development (TED) Programme at the Clandeboye Lodge Hotel. Delegates heard from a number of OTAs and Bedbank distributors along with advice on the importance of managing and protecting your online reputation.