simple ways to increase your hotel’s direct bookings

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Now a days increasing direct bookings are one of the most rewarding  tasks for any hotelier. As the vast market size and share of third party booking sites, it is now becoming in increasingly important for hotels to working towards maintain the right balance between OTA bookings and direct bookings.
Well there is  no denying the role of OTAs in giving you more bookings. However, increasing direct bookings is much better for your hotel business simply because it helps you minimize the cost of OTA intermediation.
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1-Optimize your website
Your website should not take long time to load.Make your reservation phone number or mail id clickable on all the pages .It would help a guest to click and call or write a mail to your reservation department directly from his phone. You should have a clear call to action button, too. When we talk about how to increase direct bookings, your hotel’s website plays a crucial role. It must have a strong digital identity to attract maximum visitors. Your hotel website should be visually attractive, easy to navigate and above all it should be user-friendly.
It should be properly optimized for search engines. This makes your hotel website more visible on search engines, thus attracting increased visitors. You must consider using relevant content in your website to garner organic traffic to your website. Most importantly, your hotel website should be mobile responsive. Because, bookings coming from mobile devices is expected to shoot to good percentage in India.
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2) Incorporate a booking engine into your website
 This enhances a guest’s confidence that the hotel would definitely honour the booking.Integrating a web booking engine into your brand website enables your website visitors to view the availability of rooms in real time. This real-time information made available to them is one of the easiest ways to increase direct hotel bookings. Guests would even receive instant confirmation against their bookings directly from your hotel PMS.

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3) Promote positive guest reviews on your website
Go a step further than just collecting reviews. Proactively follow up on reviews and respond to them; especially the bad ones. This communicates to prospective guests that you are a brand that cares for your guests and will definitely fetch you a brownie point.
About 98% of travellers read hotel reviews and 80% of them consider them extremely important before making the final reservation. Good reviews can influence a traveller’s booking decision in a big way. This is why it is paramount to strategically position and promote positive guest reviews on your website. It should be visible throughout all the pages till a visitor is done with the whole booking process.

4) Handle booking abandonment tactfully
Gather insights from their journey on your website. Take a close look at what kind of rooms they looked at before leaving your website. Write to them or call them, try to help them if they express their concern over the price of the room. Offer them best possible rate and tell them how booking directly with you can also get them a free breakfast during the stay. This type of personalized approach will bring them back to your property.
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5) Offer loyalty programs
Incentivize your guests with loyalty programs to book direct with you. Tell them that they can earn points that can be easily redeemed not only at your hotel, but also at outlets of their choice. This will not only a great hotel direct booking strategy, but also something that will help build a long-term association with your guests.

6) Enable booking via Facebook
Booking via Facebook is  an easier booking process to travellers via social media platforms like Facebook. Implement a booking engine that can be integrated with your brand’s Facebook page. It would help travellers to book direct with you from your hotel’s Facebook page.

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