A Guide to Boost Hotel revPAR
A direct booking website is your hotel’s dedicated online storefront, open 24/7 to guests worldwide. Unlike third-party sites, it’s a space that is entirely your own, where you control the guest experience from the very first click. Here, potential guests can explore your rooms, discover your unique amenities, and book their stay directly with you, commission-free. This guide will walk you through why a direct booking website is essential and how you can create one to increase reservations and boost hotel revenue (revPAR: revenue Per Available Room).
What are the Key Benefits of a Direct Hotel Booking Website
While Online Travel Agents (OTAs) like Expedia and Booking.com offer visibility, they come at a cost—often significant commission fees. A direct booking website shifts the balance back in your favour, providing a range of advantages that impact your bottom line and brand identity.
1. Reduce Your Distribution Costs
Commissions to OTAs can be as high as 30% per booking. By encouraging guests to book directly on your website, you eliminate these fees. Each direct reservation means more revenue stays with your hotel. This allows you to lower your overall cost of distribution and reinvest those savings into improving the guest experience or digital hotel marketing your accommodation property more effectively.
2. Build Stronger Brand Awareness
Your website is the digital face of your hotel. Driving traffic to it is a core marketing goal that builds brand awareness. To pull potential guests away from OTAs and toward your site, you need a strong online presence.
- Enhance your social media: Create a consistent social media strategy across platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest. Share high-quality photos, promotions, and a link to your booking page.
- Optimise your website: A well-designed, user-friendly website makes booking simple and inviting. Contact me for expert, free website analysis and 20-minute free AI SEO consultation.
- Ensure brand consistency: Your social media channels and website should all reflect the same brand identity, creating a seamless online persona.
- Prioritise mobile optimisation: With a large percentage of web traffic coming from mobile devices, your website must be responsive. A mobile-friendly web design ensures guests can book easily, anytime, anywhere.
3. Cultivate Direct Guest Relationships
Communicating directly with guests allows you to build genuine rapport. You can offer personalised value-adds—like a complimentary breakfast or a room upgrade—as a thank you for booking directly. This not only attracts guests but also encourages repeat business. For example, Perth Beach House and Dunsborough Beach House successfully uses this strategy by offering a Best Price Guarantee and exclusive deals for direct bookers, turning potential lookers into loyal customers.
4. Deliver a Personalised Guest Experience
Direct communication is the foundation of exceptional customer service. When you own the conversation, you can better understand your guests’ needs and preferences. This allows you to tailor their experience, creating a memorable stay that fosters trust and loyalty. A personalised touch makes guests feel valued, which is a powerful driver for good hotel reviews and word-of-mouth referrals.
5. Increase Your Biggest Promoters
A satisfied customer is your most effective brand ambassador. Guests who have a positive experience and feel a personal connection are more likely to return and recommend your hotel to others. Research shows that loyalty programs offering unique experiences can significantly boost positive promoter scores. It is often more cost-effective to retain existing customers than to acquire new ones, so focus on nurturing these relationships with tailored offers and ongoing communication.
How to Build a Direct Hotel Booking Website
Creating a professional website that accepts direct bookings is simpler than you might think. You don’t need to be a coding expert. With the right tools, you can have your site up and running efficiently.
Step 1: Build Your Hotel Website
The first phase involves creating the digital home for your brand. A dedicated hotel website builder, like the one offered by SiteMinder, can generate a professional hotel website in minutes.
Key tasks during this step include:
- Choose a design: Select a template that reflects your hotel’s brand and style.
- Define your brand: Organise your logo and establish a consistent look and feel with colours and fonts.
- Customise your pages: Build out essential pages like your homepage, gallery, about us, and booking page.
- Add high-quality content: Upload professional photos and detailed descriptions of your rooms, amenities, and local attractions.
Ensure your website includes language options for international guests and integrates with helpful apps like Google Maps and TripAdvisor to give visitors all the information they need.
Step 2: Integrate Direct Booking Capability
To accept reservations and payments online, you must connect an online booking engine to your website. A booking engine is a software tool that securely processes online bookings.
A powerful booking engine also lets you take reservations through other channels, such as metasearch sites (like Google Hotels) and your social media profiles, by providing a direct booking link. When you use an integrated platform like SiteMinder, your website and booking engine work together seamlessly, creating a smooth and professional user experience.
Choosing the Best Direct Booking Website Builder
When selecting a tool to build your hotel’s website, there are several non-negotiable features to look for. Your chosen platform should empower you to grow your business without creating technical headaches.
Look for a builder that offers:
- The ability to take direct bookings and payments on your site.
- Integration with metasearch engines and social media booking links.
- Seamless connection between your website, booking engine, and a multiple OTAs channel manager.
- Customisation options to maintain brand integrity.
- Multi-language and multi-currency capabilities for global guests.
- A mobile-optimised design to capture on-the-go bookings.
It’s wise to research your options thoroughly. Read reviews from other hoteliers, watch product demos, and take advantage of free trials to find the best fit for your property’s unique needs.
Boost Hotel Revenue with SiteMinder
If you want a straightforward solution to create a professional website and increase direct bookings, SiteMinder offers a comprehensive platform designed for modern hoteliers. It’s more than just a website builder or a booking engine; it’s a complete ecommerce platform that helps hoteliers unlock your hotel’s full revenue potential from a single, easy-to-use dashboard.
With SiteMinder, you can:
- Attract your ideal guests: Use an industry-leading channel manager to list your rooms on hundreds of OTA booking channels with automated inventory updates.
- Increase your profit margins: Drive commission-free direct bookings and offer extras to entice more guest spending.
- Make smarter decisions: Access real-time insights into your local market, competitor pricing, and booking performance.
A direct booking website is a crucial tool for capturing more market share and building a sustainable, profitable business. By implementing the right technology, you can make it easy for guests to book your hotel directly, strengthening your brand and your bottom line.