lundi 17 décembre 2012

Booking.com: Your Worst Best Friend?

Booking.com now claims to be the number one online hotel reservation service in the World, and its flat commission model has been replaced by one of bidding for position on the first page of a destination, with hotels paying over 20% in commission to be on the first page.

Hotels might be receiving significant revenue from the reservations that are made through the site, but if they depend on Booking.com for their reservations, they have little bargaining power

That’s why hoteliers have with Booking.com a love-hate relationship. They are unpleased by Booking.com’s attitude to be the reservations leader but they can’t do without it as it really sells too much! “Many consumers consider that all hotels are on booking.com, at least all that matter”. The paradox here is that clients adore Booking.com and hoteliers detest it and that is what link Booking.com and hoteliers.

I have worked with Booking.com and it is unbelievable how they can be so persistent on their aims! They never give up! And unfortunately there is nothing you can do to avoid it because you need them. My manager even went to establish a price ridiculously high on the last room available in the hotel so to sell it directly instead of selling it on Booking.com. The relationship becomes really cynic.

But Booking.com’s influence can be balanced by hotel digital marketing. And the most important actions I believe are to have a great looking website as the majority of consumers prefer to book directly with the property (in the hotel I worked, this was the case) and to diversify the channels of reservation choosing the ones most relevant to the hotel’s segment. In this particular hotel there were not really implementing this and as it was an independent boutique hotel, in my opinion it could have been a good idea to get the hotel listed on mrandmrssmith.com for example.

So, to conclude, I would say that Booking.com is an inevitable partner of any kind of hotel (in fact, the hotel cited was one of the first to enter on Booking.com within all the hotels in the region) but, its sales can be abated, replacing them by other booking channels but most importantly, by trying to increase direct bookings.

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