Day 5: Maximize third party distribution
Contract with all of the major Online Travel Agencies and make sure you are participating in the Global Distribution System (GDS). In today’s environment, very few independent hotel websites can compete with the exposure provided by large distributors. Once you’re contracted, develop a personal relationship your Market Manager. If your Market Manager resides out of town, offer to house them at your property when they travel to your area for site visits and treat them like royalty. Stay apprised of promotional opportunities and merchandising tools. Participate in all of them. Merchandising tools are designed to reach consumers in different ways. If you fail to employ any single tool, you will bypass an entire segment of consumers. Do not automatically reject preferred margins. Placement is king when it comes to online exposure and is especially competitive for independents. Have a candid conversation with your Market Managers and negotiate aggressively. Always shoot for page 1 but accept revolving placement during periods when you have limited inventory. Maintain parity. OTAs scrape rates on other sites and will bump your placement if you have better offers elsewhere. They will also remember such miss-steps when it comes to future placement decisions and it will affect how your property is ranked within the companys’ internal algorithm of preferred hotels. Keep in mind, however, that many OTAs offer opaque rates through “secret” channels that are not scraped by parity search engines. Educate yourself about those opportunities and use them to your advantage.