Many hotels fail to tailor their websites according to season, instead choosing to keep the same design and offers for the whole year. But every season has its own dynamics, and if you aim to increase your direct bookings, there are certain topics which are nice to cover on your website.
Here are three ways to optimise your website and get it ready for summer…
Messaging
Start updating your website by highlighting your summer-related facilities. Do you have a pool? Is your hotel suitable for kids? Does your property have a beach, or a terrace with view? Make sure that you include up-to-date images that are high-quality showcasing the details of them. If you offer outdoor activities, be sure you promote it on your website as well.
Special Events
In order to increase the number of your website visitors and maximise occupancy rate during peak season, a proactive strategy and constant attention are necessary. You can use these quick tips to help you get the most from your direct bookings during the summer season:
Focus on upcoming holidays
Use special offers. Give travellers a reason to choose your hotel for their vacation with summer theme offers or vouchers. People enjoy something different – if you target families with children, summer theme packages full of children’s activities might draw families’ attention to your hotel.
Romantic packages
Offer couples a romantic dinner included in their booking. If couples are your focus guest type, bundled activities like an ocean cruise for two, a romantic sailing trip on the lake, or a complimentary drink on the rooftop can have a strong influence on their decision to book.
Local events
If there are local events coming up, like festivals, concerts or fairs, it’s always good to highlight them on your website. You could also offer free or discounted entry to the event.
Targeting / Trends
Don’t forget your mobile website. Mobile internet usage is constantly growing and in order to catch mobile visitors and convince them to make a booking on your mobile website there are a couple of things to do as well.
Mobile booking is on the rise
Data shows that up to 80% of last-minute bookings are made on mobile devices. OTA mobile booking numbers are driving much of this through apps and mobile user experience and so tend to trend higher than direct mobile bookings. In order to increase direct mobile bookings, your mobile website should have some certain points:
- Improved mobile user interface and simplified navigation.
- Images should be large and clickable.
- Buttons should be large enough to tap – specifically your call-to-actions.
- Text size should be sized without needing to zoom in.
- The mobile booking process should be simplified as well. Hoteliers should avoid requesting unnecessary information from the visitors.
Last-minute bookings
Summer also generally has a more immediate booking window, with large numbers of guests booking rooms mere days or sometimes even hours before arrival.
Guests browsing for last-minute bookings make up a considerable portion of both OTA and brand.com search traffic. In fact, many OTAs market themselves to hoteliers based on this fact, as a way of shifting distressed inventory.
By using Hotelchamp’s booking window targeting, hotels can now directly offer the same sorts of discounts or incentives that these late bookers are looking for. By offering a direct discount to guests browsing just a couple of days before arrival, hotels can offer the same sorts of deals to guests at the cost that they would’ve surrendered in commissions to an OTA for the same booking.
This post originally appeared on the Hotelchamp website and is reproduced with their permission.
