One of the biggest challenges for modern hotels is establishing a strong presence online. With more and more tourists booking their trips exclusively online, it’s never been more important to get familiar with digital channels like Online Travel Agencies.
OTAs come in all shapes and sizes — global giants like Booking.com and Agoda, as well as local sites like Yatra and MakeMyTrip in India.
One of the best ways to succeed with your OTA strategy is through a Channel Manager, and that’s what we’ll show you in this post.
Why is OTA strategy important?
Establishing a presence on the right OTAs allows you to tap into much bigger traffic sources, far more than any hotel website can command. Your hotel will be shown to vast volumes of potential guests, helping you grow your presence and drive more bookings.
Still, you need the right approach. A smart strategy, backed by the right tools and technologies, is essential to succeed in the world of OTAs without going insane.
How a Channel Manager helps
Channel Managers — like Hotel-Spider’s — allow you to more easily manage your presence across many OTAs, with the following advantages:
- You can synchronize key information — like availability, room rates, facilities, check-in information, rules, and more — across all OTAs much more easily, ensuring your listings are always up-to-date and relevant.
- Your Channel Manager will handle bookings automatically. This gives you access to key insights and information and ensures your records are always updated and accurate to avoid unwanted errors like overbooking.
- Integrate all your different sales channels, not just OTAs, in one central place to easily stay on top of your activities.
- By building a presence across multiple OTAs, you may even gain direct bookings when visitors see your hotel on one or more platforms and choose to make the booking through your site directly. This is called the “billboard effect”.
- By streamlining your OTA strategy with a Channel Manager, you’ll be able to focus on a range of OTAs, including local platforms that cater to your geographic region — this can be a great way to stand out and attract more guests with less competition.
Work with Hotel-Spider
Hotel-Spider’s Channel Manager is just one part of our overall suite of tools for hotels. It’s built with transparency, security, and ease of use in mind — helping you establish and maintain a strong presence across all the right online platforms.
Schedule a demo with us to find out more and get started.
