If we have to extract any positive aspect from 2020, it is the strength with which it has shown us the reality to the hotel sector. In fact to all sectors, but from our perspective it has offered us a great reality check. The acceleration of the digitalization of the industry has been one of the consequences and with that we have realized that our industry frankly needed it.
Revenue Management
I remember a Revenue Management course back in 2005 at the Meliá Galgos hotel. I had just finished the season as Assistant Manager at what is currently called Sol Calas de Mallorca Resort, what was previously Sol Mastines Chihuahuas and Sol Balmoral. They talked to us about the strategic part, from the point of view of a hotel director or a revenue manager. My curiosity for new tools led me to investigate a little more the technical side of revenue management. There was Toñi, the hotel’s reservations manager, explaining to me what a channel manager was and what it was for. Those were the early days of Rate Tiger for me.
I remember him telling me about the booking.com and hotels.de extranet and how we were working so far. It was really a backlog to be feeding extranets and the hotel’s own sale.
The convenience of OTAS and the Client Journey Hotel
The idea of having a web-based inventory fed through a channel manager, from a single location, was very interesting. Additionally, prices and sales rules, extraordinary, could be loaded. The lessons learned in the Revenue Management courses made sense. I was fascinated to hear high-brow conversations that said they were going to do away with travel agency commissions (at that time at a decent 10% or 12% if it was an agency associated with a large account (the English court, come on).
Fifteen years have passed and reality has dealt us a big blow. The truth is that what the OTAS have been doing has been very intelligent. They have overtaken the sector on the right and on the left. It has always been clear to OTAS that by knowing the customer’s journey from the time they have a need to travel to the time they book, they hold the key. If you learn from customer behaviors, you’ve got it. Translated into technical language, if you know what your client’s CLIENT JOURNEY is, you can get it right when and how to sell your hotel. Of course, it is more comfortable to let yourself eat the toast and then talk about the need to lower the commissions of the OTAS… Yes, it is more comfortable, but more expensive.
Whoever has the data holds the key to the Client Journey.
I remember a conversation in a forum of digital marketing in which I told them in 2017, that the otas were not allowing the hotel to communicate with the clients in the hotel client journey. This means and you know it well, that the hotel has made a reservation and is assigned a temporary email with the domain of the ota, at least booking does so. The hotel can communicate with the customer through this email, but in a very limited way. Interesting data on when the client was connected, what searches the client has performed, how long the client has been on the destination screen and other additional data is held by the OTA.
One of the speakers asked me why the hotels had allowed it and I did not know how to answer. I have my theory, but I am not going to make it public because it is my conjecture. If what the industry is starting to learn, had known how to do 15 years ago, it would be a different story.
The data, ALL of it, is in the hands of the OTAS, not in the hands of the hoteliers. The clients that come to us through this channel are not from the hotels, they are from the OTAS. This is to write a thesis on how to do things in online marketing.
During the last edition of the master’s degree in hotel management and within the subject in which I teach, “Strategic management of hotels and restaurants”, it occurred to me that we could offer the students a current vision of what sales through different channels was. The bet was agreed with the direction of the master, always open to offer real experiences in the sector. We present a winning bet by inviting Pep Diaz Co-Founder of Click to Travel a true expert in focusing hotel sales through the direct channel. The conversation with Pep to ask him to please give us a masterclass, was per se a compendium of best practices and know-how. I should have recorded it because it gave me 15 valuable minutes if you want to improve your sales in the direct channel.
Click to Travel has the best web design and online marketing team with a focus on direct sales in the whole national panorama. Pep explained to me in a previous conversation, how the hotel’s website was made. Five Flowers in Menorca was made. He gave me a crash course on web fundamentals and how to make a hotel website focused on direct sales, to take advantage of the strength of the own channel. The websites they create are totally focused on optimization and conversion in the direct channel.
