CEO and Project Manager
June 6, 2019
With the explosion of the “digital way of life”, the traveler’s customer journey has become increasingly complex, requiring independent hoteliers to reconsider and review their marketing and technology strategies and investments. Optimizing your distribution and improving your direct booking will be some of the keys to boosting the profitability of your business.
The online travel consumer is latvia email list currently exposed to over 38,983 micro-moments in any 60-day time period and visits an average of 18 websites across multiple devices in eight sessions before booking an accommodation ( Google Research ).
Google defines this customer journey as a fluid series of interconnected stages: Dream , Plan , Book , Experience, and Share , with each stage influencing and being influenced by the other stages of the journey.
OTAs are instrumental in digital marketing initiatives and technological solutions to engage the traveler throughout the customer journey. They are identified as OTA customers and need to be kept engaged throughout their “lifespan” (for each type of business). As a result, OTAs have de facto monopolized guest relationships and left independent hoteliers in a difficult position.
This investment by OTAs is paying off: over the past six years, OTAs have increased their market share by more than 40% at the expense of the hotel's direct channel. (It is interesting to analyse this evolution and see what is most interesting for the accommodation industry.)
Table of Contents [ Hide ]
0.0.1 What should hoteliers or independent accommodation managers do to establish themselves in the customer journey process to get ahead and win direct bookings?
0.1 Let's review the three categories of digital marketing:
0.2 What is the situation today?
1 Here are some of the steps hoteliers and independent accommodation managers should take to gain direct bookings:
