F E AT U R E A R T I C L E
Optimising your
online channel mix:
4 tips to help maximise
revenue opportunities
Adriaan Coppens Co-founder and CEO, OTA Insight
T
he current online booking market
is a crowded and evolving space-
there’s other accommodation
providers, online travel agents (OTAs)
and metasearch sites all actively
advertising and promoting for the
next traveller’s attention, but more
importantly their spend. Hoteliers
need to stay on their toes to ensure
that they are able to take advantage of
the incremental opportunities in the
changing online environment and stay
ahead of the advancing competition
wherever that is coming from.
Here are 4 tips which can help you maximise your
revenue opportunities and drive profits.
1
Get a view on the changing market
The online travel travel market is constantly
evolving, and if you miss or fail to understand what
is changing in the market can be costly. Some recent
developments that may need to be considered include:
• The rise of Airbnb, and what hoteliers are doing
about it. With more than 3 million property
listings, Airbnb has more available "rooms" than
any hotel chain in the world. Most recently Airbnb
has also started targeting hotels with recent changes
to the site helping to open the platform more easily
to hotels, with promises of a lower commission
structure and more open platform, it’s certainly of
interest to many hoteliers.
• Metasearch growth. With more travellers trending
towards using metasearch sites as research tools,
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because they advertise and promote
themselves heavily as solutions which
seek out the best rates on the web
for all available accommodation.
Metasearch sites invest huge amounts
of advertising behind promoting
this, and hotels can benefit from this
exposure, when utilising them the
right way. Hotels are able control how
they appear on these sites by taking
ownership of their profile, managing
their presence on these channels, and
most importantly rates.
• OTAs are modifying business models
to compete with disruptors
including Airbnb and metasearch. With increased
focus on adding
value across the travel experience, and new
technology developments particularly across mobile
– understanding the changing OTA business models
and being able to take advantage of this is crucial.
It’s not just about how a hotel fits into their overall
mix, it’s about how to leverage their strategy to
optimise the opportunity for the hotel.
• Smaller OTAs continue to disrupt. The likes of
Amoma, Otel, Zenhotels amongst others are able
to promote their discounted (often wholesaler
onsold) inventory on Metasearch sites – providing
platform where your rates to appear lower than
your brand.com, and completely out of your
control as a hotelier.
• Mobile devices becoming more prevalent through the
booking journey. Mobile growth has helped the