Hotels reservations continue to become challenging for hotels month after month. With OTAs and competitive accommodation options sprouting out for the guests, hotels have to continuously strive to come up with better ways to plan distribution. But just as challenging hotel bookings have turned today for the hotels, users find the new options to give them the ability to explore the hotels in an area before they decide which one to choose. From pricing to facilities, everything can be checked before a booking is made.
So how does a hotel make sure that the distribution increases and which are the best distribution strategies to be utilized?
What is your target market?
What are your offerings and how do they match the distribution channels that you are using? If your hotel offering is affordable pricing then you may prefer a specific channel while if you are targeting guests who are looking for luxury honeymoon suites, then you may want to use a different channel.
These things can get pretty messy when you are trying to analyse these things on your own, but many hotels leave the leg work to be done by software or online tools that tell you exactly what your hotel’s current standing is and it can connect to numerous Distribution Systems which can in turn give you access to a number of portals across the world. It increases your visibility on a larger scale and makes your hotel easily available for booking through many different OTAs.
A hotel cannot rely on the online booking system on the hotel’s website alone to gain customers. Now, social media, mobile apps and OTAs are gaining ground, so hotels have to embrace innovation and make sure that they are making use of all these different distribution methods so that they can get more visibility.
Relying on a single distribution channel can only cause the hotel to get very limited number of customers because of lower visibility. It is imperative for hotels to ensure that they keep their online booking system simple, and they make themselves available on other portals with the help of software which can ensure that the hotel prices and terms are clearly communicated on all portals.
With the help of an effective distribution system software, hotels will be able to maximize their reach to potential customers and get more new customers. It can also increase their rates of conversions when they have a larger number of customers being able to check the hotel offerings through different portals.
When we talk about increasing the distribution of the hotel, we must find out the goals of the hotel and the target customers so that the hotel can decide the right distribution system for itself based on the guests it is targeting. While certain OTAs like Expedia provides customers with a variety of options, some booking sites like hostelbookers may not be the best place to advertise if you are targeting customers for luxury suites.
