OTA Strategy Project 2012 Project Purpose Filte Ireland wanted to - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

OTA Strategy Project 2012

Project Purpose

Fáilte Ireland wanted to address industry demand for more support and information on the OTA channel options for Irish hospitality businesses.

The Comparator

OTA Comparator

Booking Engine Comparator

OTA Comparator

• 1. The OTA's

In-depth interviews with the top OTA’s in the Irish market

• 2. Irish Hoteliers

Telephone interviews with a mix of hoteliers across Ireland Asked over 400 hoteliers their opinion via an online survey

• 3. International Research

Looked to international research on OTA’s to back up our findings

The Research

The OTA's

all in

CONTEXT

Putting it

71% of all travel research takes place online 50% of all Travel Bookings across Europe are made

• nline

Travel Online

Ref: IPK International, March 2012 Ref: Econsultancy Toluna Travel Survey

OTA's make up 37% of this

Total value of travel bookings in Europe 2011 €238 billion

Travel Online

Ref: PhoCusWright Global Online Travel Review

Total value is €88 billion

Mobile Ownership

½ of all customers never visit a travel agent for holiday bookings ½ of Italians booked their accommodation online making it the strongest Ecommerce category Customers prefer to go to a travel agent for more expensive trips yStats.com "Europe Online Travel Report 2012"

Main driver of growth in Europe? Booking.com Took 27% of all Gross OTA bookings OTA growth – 19% Supplier sites – 9%

OTA Growth 2011

Ref: PhoCusWright FYI Jan 2012

OTA Growth

OTA Market Share by Country

Europe – 37% (+19% in 2011) China – up 34% in 2011 (expected +45% in 2012) Australia – 34% (+55% in the last 2years)

Ref: Traveltrends.biz, China Economic Net

• f

MOBILE

The impact

Smartphone & Tablets

Mobile Ownership

By end of 2012:

Three out of four Irish will have a

Smartphone.

Two out of five Irish will have a

Tablet device. RedC Report – Connecting the World, Winter 2012

The OTA's we spoke to expect mobile bookings to make up 20-25% of total bookings by the end of 2013 Mobile bookings are expected to have TRIPLED by end 2012, with 8% of all mobile users booking via mobile device

Mobile Bookings

Ref: Google Travel Report

Channel

Game Changers

Online booking

Google Hotel Finder

Google Hotel Finder

Meta Search Sites

Meta Search Sites

Roomkey Exit Strategy

Roomkey Exit Strategy

Billboard

Effect

The

75%

visited an OTA 1,720 reservations at IHG websites

Cornell Study

Ref: Cornell Chris Anderson

83%

web search

60%

did both

1 OTA booking = 3-9 bookings on hotel website

• Ave. OTA visit

= 1 hour = 90 pages of content

Cornell Study

"OTA's are now publicly projecting their job as complementary to hotels, not

• competitive. The tension in OTA/hotel

relationships – particularly during the recession – are certainly justifiable, but at the core, online intermediaries are meant to be incremental business…”

"…so what does this change for hotels? Nothing really. They still have to continue to remind themselves that they control their inventory, not the OTAs. However, the OTAs taking this consumer-facing initiative will be good for hotels if they are savvy with their rate management and rooms distribution”

Dan Marcec, Hotel Interactive, 6th March 2012

say about

OTA's

What hotels

477 Irish hoteliers were asked their views

• n the OTA brands they work with in during

Dec 2011 - Feb 2012

2.

Breakout Session

Tips for dealing with OTA’s

• 1. Manage your own conversion

Today there is less brand loyalty to hotels and to OTA’s. Conversion is between 4-5% on the international OTA websites, so many of the visitors who find you on an OTA may also visit your website. What are you doing to convert them?

• 2. Reassure Your Website Visitors

What is your rate policy between your own site and the OTA’s? What reassurances are you giving your site visitors that they are getting a good deal? Can they cancel? Then tell them!!

• 3. Make sure you are on the correct OTA’s

What are your top customer markets and what OTA’s do they use? Ask the OTA’s you work with what nationalities are booking Irish hotels? Within the main OTA’s that we researched the the top nationalities booking varies hugely - you need to work with at least 3 of them to get good access to the main international markets.

• 4. Match OTA terms

Match the deposit and cancellation policies of your top OTA’s

• 5. Understand the OTA Customer

Load rates and availability strategically with your OTA’s to ensure they have rates loaded far enough in advance For example: one site 16% are booking +60 days out & 10% are booking on the day – have you both bases covered?

• 6. Create Excellent Content

OTA’s say conversion by property on their sites can be +/- 3% based on the quality of the information and photos available Some OTA’s them will offer you a copywriting service, but for others you must give them all the copy, so make sure you know how to ‘write for the web’. You should have a min. of 20 good quality, relevant photos loaded with the OTA’s. Make sure you put time into making your content great!

• 7. Understand the Algorithim

The OTA’s work on an algorithm to plan their property rankings. These algorithmic are equations that may take into account all or some of the following:

• Price competitiveness
• Promotional rates
• Conversion rate
• No. of cancellations
• Location (ie: distance to the search)
• Number and quality of photos
• Quality of the hotel description
• Ave. review score

• 8. Get Mobile

Expedia say that expect 20% of all their bookings to take place on mobile platforms (Smart phones and tablets) by 2015. You need to consider what impact this will have on lead times, rates and offers booked, and your

• wn mobile website.

• 9. Manage Your OTA Relationships

When working with OTA’s its not just about loading up the same rates as you have on your site for the coming months, you need to make sure you have the following loaded (where applicable):

• Seasonal offers
• Last minute offers
• Advanced purchase rates
• Multi night discount
• All room types

If you work through a channel manager, make sure you don’t leave the machine to do the work! Several of the sites mentioned that the hotels that work closely with them tend to be invited to participate in additional Marketing campaigns across the site, social media and newsletters

• 10. Don’t let the Channel Manager to

all the work

OTA’s reported that hotels sometimes get lazy when they have a Channel Manager. You need to flex your rates and manage your availability and room types in order to get the most out of your OTA’s

Thank

YOU