How to increase direct hotel bookings by fostering your guest’s loyalty

Why is Hotel Data crucial for fostering guest loyalty?

The increase in technologies that allow you to compile data about your guests has led to several different ways of retaining hotel guests. Owners can now view future marketing campaigns, and can even assess new ways of spreading their brand’s message through the use of technology.

Data collection allows you to act in ways which leave a bigger impact on the client. Data analysis, meanwhile, allows you to verify the most successful strategies which might be worth repeating.

One of the many benefits of technology-based data collection is the ability to direct your retained clients to the direct channel for potential future bookings.

Why is it so important to get clients to make bookings through the direct channel?

On average, hotels receive 90 % of their bookings via commissioned channels – such as Booking or Expedia – with only 10 % making payments through the hotel website’s booking engine. This entails a significate annual expenditure on commissions for hotel owners. If an alternative is not sought for this situation, this shall be a long-term expense for the hotel that it has no option but to pay.

However, thanks to various client retention practices, it is possible to draw clients towards the direct channel. By doing this, they can make their future bookings directly on the hotel’s website instead of booking rooms via commissioned channels. This allows the hotel to spend much less money on commissions for intermediary channels.

To do so, hotel’s need to invest in technology and make organisational changes to the hotel. The incorporation of technology helps to transform the hotel’s internal processes and creates a loyalty culture, which clearly benefits the digital transformation of the brand’s properties.

How are guest loyalty strategies used to increase direct bookings?

One of the most successful guest loyalty practices is the sending of personalised and segmented emails. In other words, you should initiate contact with the client with a personalised message. You are already well aware of the importance of making your guests feel like they are unique and special for the hotel. As such, receiving emails from your brand after staying at your hotel leaves a positive impact on them.

In order to devise a strategy that directs repeating clients towards the direct channel, you will require several pieces of information that are crucial for establishing effective communication. This information can be obtained through the following channels:

1. Hotel Data

Hotel Data is the universe comprising every piece of data that you store about your guests who have previously stayed or are due to stay in your hotel. This data can be used to develop effective strategies to strengthen the relationship between the client and your brand.

In order to effectively draw them towards the direct channel, your Hotel Data must contain verified high-quality data that adheres to the GDPR. Besides booking details, this information also includes valuable information about your guests’ interests, habits, customs, etc.

The more you know about your guests, the greater impact your actions will have on them — especially with regards to retaining them and offering them new products. If you stop and think about it, this is a win-win situation: your brand attains a repeating client, and the guest will return to the hotel with a better experience.

One thing you can obtain information about is the booking channel used by the guest. This will allow you to measure the number of bookings made per commissioned channel. By doing this, you can ascertain the places from which you should aim to draw clients towards the direct channel. As you are well aware, commissioned channels do not share all their information with your hotel.

They do not share an important block of information known as the basic data block (email address, age, language, nationality, etc.). They do, however, share information from the transactional data block, providing you with information such as the room they have booked, the type of board they opted for (half board/full board) and whether they are staying with adults and/or children. However, the basic data block is required for the Hotel Data and for defining the client retainment strategy.

This is why directing bookings to the direct channel will allow Hotel Data to obtain all the valuable information about the guests, using this data to ensure their satisfaction. Hotel Data can compile 60-95 % of the data, making it a vital source of information for your various strategies.

How is the Hotel Data activated?

Nowadays, various technologies are being developed specifically for hotels, devised by experts in the hotel industry aiming to put together their own Hotel Data. Not only do these tools allow you to compile data, but they can also be used to generate automatic activities for your guest loyalty strategy.

For example, the Hotel Data will allow you to automatically send segmented communications after a specific event, such as a repeated booking. This entails a more effective communication with your client, as it will be of interest to them and will be related to their latest activity. As such, it will retain their trust in your brand.

2. CRM

For your client retaining system to be a success, the automatic sending of personalised emails is crucial. This could take the shape of a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) that focuses specifically on the hotel sector.

The quantity of information obtained about your guests requires proper organisation and a correct follow-up of every piece of data recorded. This is particularly true for the tracking of sales using the booking engine, which links each purchase with each repeating guest.

This will help you to exclude the guests who have made recent bookings from your upcoming campaigns. By doing this, you can appropriately direct the clients’ attention to the direct channel without harming their trust in your brand.

3. Email marketing

Sending emails to your guests is a magnificent way of securing direct bookings. However, the sending of emails by means of securing bookings through the direct channel requires a professional planning of the email marketing strategy. Remember the importance of maintaining healthy contact with each client.

On one hand, to create the perfect message for each group of guests, you must create high-quality content that they consider to be of value. On the other hand, when sending emails you must be sure to monitor various important aspects in order for the communication to be successful. These may include the segmentation, the established delivery and spam regulations, subscription follow-up, etc.

Who should dictate the professional planning of the email marketing campaign?

One option is to leave it in the hands of digital marketing agencies who specialise in the hotel and accommodation industry. Alternatively, you could leave it to in-house experts who have a proven track record.