eight things that hotels could do to improve online reservations
Triptease has revealed a list of eight things that hotels could do to improve online reservations.
How to improve your online booking systems.
How to improve your online booking systems.
Top of the list includes reviewing interface design, showing prices in the right currency and proving the cheapest rate. The research examines how people interact with a range of online booking systems and provides tips that will help hotels increase online transactions.
More than 70% of people would book directly with the hotel if they were sure they could get the best deal, meaning there is a huge market for direct bookings, but the frustrations often outweigh the benefits. The research findings are summarised in a new eBook entitled ‘Get A Room’ and are intended to aid hotels wishing to attract more people to book directly on their website.
Earlier this year Triptease introduced Price Check, a smart widget that sits on hotels’ websites showing live prices from across the web. Six-hundred hotels have signed up to Price Check since January and on average they are seeing direct bookings increase by 35%. The company has surfaced the widget to 2 million people worldwide in a number of languages and currencies.
Charlie Osmond, Triptease’s ‘chief tease’ said: “Our research shows that people will book direct on hotel websites if it’s easy and intuitive. There are some great hotel websites that provide a fabulous experience for the guest. The future is here but it is just unevenly distributed. By surfacing what the guest wants we are helping to level the playing field for hoteliers”.
Lennert de Jong, commercial director at CitizenM hotels contributed to the eBook and said: “A hotel’s website is like a boutique. You may find the best products, but you also need to have the best deal available and that’s why ‘reassure me’ is one of the findings I talk about in Triptease’s Get a Room eBook. Hotels have to do all they can to get guests to understand the brand and the concept and for me transparency and reassurance is critical to that.”
Among the book’s recommendations are the following:
Make it simple, short and clean: 94% of people have abandoned a booking online recently, 29% because of factors related to the system being used.
Photos, Photos, Photos: The best hotels, show, don’t tell. 70% of people rely on photos to learn about a hotel.
Show me lots of dates: 71% of people agreed that being shown prices on dates either side of the ones they’ve selected is useful to them.
Put it in my currency: 53% of people told us they are frustrated by being shown prices in currencies other than theirs