Managing dynamics such as staffing in the face of labor shortages, enabling digital transformation or attracting pre-pandemic levels of group business can be a daunting and complex proposition. Often, however, small incremental improvements in specific areas can make a big impact without huge amounts of time and effort. Optimizing the performance of your direct channel by addressing the key fundamentals of e-commerce, for example, can provide significant returns for a fairly low level of effort.
Industry and evolution of guests
Before examining the “what” and “how” of an effective e-commerce strategy, it’s important to understand the “why.” First, we recognize that our industry has changed. Increased competition, compressed booking windows and a new awareness of how quickly unforeseen circumstances can affect demand require hoteliers to maximize the value of each potential booking. Second, the guest has changed. They have high shopping expectations because of the experiences they get when they buy from e-commerce giants: fast, intuitive and simple. They also have a greater desire than ever for more personalized experiences that speak to their unique needs and preferences.
These influences mean that yesterday’s e-commerce practices are no longer sufficient to generate direct bookings and ancillary revenue from a hotel’s e-commerce website while delivering maximum potential value to guests. It’s important to regularly evaluate your direct booking processes, strategies and tactics to ensure you’re doing all the right things to attract, engage and convert website shoppers into loyal fans.
While e-commerce tactics can be as simple or as complex as needed to fit your unique offerings and strategies, a solid foundation should cover the fundamental strategies. Here are 3 areas of focus to examine and refine.
1. Search engine optimization
Make sure guests can find your property
If your direct channel is not present in search, it is not part of the channel mix. Search for “hotels in city X” to see if it appears in the results for your location. If you’re in a large urban market, be specific with your search query “4 star waterfront hotels in city X.” are you present Are you on the first page of results? Do you have below page is your list?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is now a core component of any digital marketing and sales strategy. Almost all hoteliers will use some form of SEO in their e-commerce practices, but it is often limited to competitive keyword strategies, title tag and meta description.
To take your SEO strategy to the next level, there are a number of additional elements you can use on your website to increase your search engine rankings for more site traffic, including:
Link building: Search engines consider the scope and reach of your site when publishing results. Build links between internal pages and with reputable external sites to increase your ranking.
Outline marking: This is a more technical and advanced strategy, which will likely require the assistance of your webmaster. Schema markup (also known as “structured data”) is additional information in your website’s HTML code that tells search engines more information about your property.
Advertising campaigns: Targeting high-potential guest audiences through paid search ad campaigns (eg Pay Per Click or PPC) can drive high-converting groups into your direct channel and is a great addition to your overall SEO strategy by allowing you to test different messages and offers with specific guest segments.
2. Web browsing
Put guests at ease and reduce churn
E-commerce giants invest a significant focus on manufacturing web browsing simple and intuitive, and so should you. Unfortunately, this doesn’t happen often with hospitality e-commerce sites. You may have experienced navigation issues when booking a stay on a Brand.com website. For example, was it clear and simple to start the booking process at every step and on every page? After you’ve clicked the “Book Now” button, have you been taken to a new URL with a different look and feel that’s left you wondering if you’re in the right place? If you clicked through to a Brand.com website from a metasearch site, did your stay data arrive intact and pre-populated into the booking engine?
Focusing on key areas of navigation improvement can deliver a better guest shopping experience, higher conversion rates and increased ancillary revenue. Here are some things to consider when evaluating your website browsing experience.
Mobile-First, Responsive Design: Recent studies show that more than 40% of hotel bookings come through mobile devices, while more than 60% of website visitors are on mobile devices. Make sure mobile browsing is no longer optional.
Website integrated into the experience booking engine: The fragmented website solution for booking engine experience with a single URL and consistent look and feel gives guests peace of mind and promotes higher conversion rates.
Meta to booking engine deep links: Getting guests to click quickly and easily from meta sites to your booking engine with all dates, rooms/packages and guest numbers pre-packaged can help support a healthy channel mix between OTAs and direct bookings. This can also lead to higher direct conversions due to the ease of booking and the time savings it brings.
3. Optimization of conversions
Attract guests to book profitable stays
Attracting potential guests to your website and providing a pleasant browsing experience is only part of the e-commerce equation. Now that they’re in your direct channel, you need to close the deal. Conversion optimization can cover a wide range of strategies and tactics, but it’s crucial to address the basics and there are many different ways to turn a website visitor into a loyal fan.
Effective use of white space: Clean and tidy layouts can help focus your guest’s attention on the actions and next steps you want them to take.
Social Etiquette/Emergency Messaging: Create urgency and capitalize on human nature and the “fear of missing out” by highlighting booking options and packages with additional social context such as “Best Seller”, “Special Offer” or “Only 2 left!” .
Promotions with discounts on services: Consider discounting and promoting services (parking, breakfast, late check-out) in the booking flow, which can not only help attract more guests to book, but also help protect the average daily rate (ADR) by maintaining rates constants
An effective e-commerce strategy that increases direct bookings, generates ancillary revenue and personalizes the guest experience begins with a solid application of fundamental strategies and tactics. And while there’s no “one-size-fits-all” approach to optimizing the performance of your direct channel, a willingness to experiment can help create the right set of tools to meet your guests’ expectations and business goals of your brand.
To learn more about fundamental ecommerce strategies in the hospitality industry, be sure to download the “Definitive guide to hotel e-commerce” to understand all the different elements you can apply to create your winning formula.
About Amadeus
Amadeus offers more personalized and authentic travel experiences. Our solutions are designed to enrich every stage of the traveler’s journey and help hospitality providers acquire, serve and retain guests by profitably driving demand and turning them into loyal fans.
Backed by over 30 years of experience, we design open and cutting-edge software to deliver the most efficient, reliable and trustworthy systems to our customers. With experts in over 175 countries, we have a deep understanding of the hospitality industry and a desire to enable our hotel partners to create memorable guest experiences.
To learn more about Amadeus, visit www.amadeus-hospitality.com.
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