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Online Travel Agencies (OTAs): Full Guide for Hotels

  Posted in Resources  Last updated 15/12/2023

What are online travel agencies (OTAs)?

OTA stands for online travel agent or online travel agency. Online travel agencies are online companies where travellers can book hotels, flights, car hire, or even entire vacation packages. Examples of popular online travel agencies are Booking.com, Expedia, and Airbnb, among others.

For a hotel, the definition is slightly different. An OTA is where you can list your property, advertising to the thousands of travellers who may be looking for a room in your city or town throughout the year.

While hoteliers can achieve much success with OTA connections, it’s also dangerous to rely too heavily upon them. There are still too many properties across the industry without mobile optimised websites and booking engines, and even more still that remain with manual processes to manage their business in favour of a property management system (PMS).

Connecting to online travel agencies will help your hotel increase its visibility and maintain its occupancy. Your property may even rank higher on search engines – and yet the commission fee from online travel agencies can feel like a necessary evil if hotels want to accomplish this.

This blog will look at some key insights that help you choose the right OTAs for your accommodation business so you can gain more revenue.

Table of contents

Why are online travel agencies important for hotels?

It’s well established by now that OTAs are crucial for your hotel’s booking success, both as a marketing and distribution channel, particularly as online travel bookings continue to grow.

OTAs are the preferred method of booking trips and accommodation for the majority of travellers. They are at the centre of a thriving online marketplace which offers broad choice, convenience, speed, value, and security.

The prominence of online travel agencies such as Expedia and Booking.com, continues to grow and they’re a proven resource for travellers who use them to discover a diverse range of accommodation options at the best price.

Types of OTA platforms

Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) have revolutionised the way we plan and book our travels. They offer a one-stop-shop for travellers, providing a platform to compare and book flights, hotels, vacation rentals, and more. There are several types of OTA platforms, each catering to a specific need of the traveller.

OTA Hotel

Hotel OTAs are platforms that primarily focus on providing a wide range of hotel options to travellers. These platforms allow users to compare prices, amenities, locations, and reviews of various hotels, making it easier for them to find the perfect accommodation for their trip. They often offer deals and discounts, making them a popular choice for budget-conscious travellers.

OTA Vacation Rental

OTA Vacation Rental platforms, such as Airbnb, Vrbo, and HomeAway, have gained immense popularity in recent years. These platforms offer travellers the opportunity to book unique accommodations like apartments, villas, or even treehouses, providing a home-away-from-home experience. They are particularly popular among travellers seeking long-term stays or those looking for a more local and authentic travel experience.

OTA Metasearch 

OTA Metasearch platforms like Google Travel, Trivago, and Kayak, aggregate information from various online travel agencies and direct booking websites. They allow users to compare prices and offerings from multiple sources in one place, saving them the time and effort of visiting each site individually. These platforms often redirect users to the original booking site to complete their reservation.

OTA Flights

OTA Flights platforms, including Skyscanner, Kayak, and CheapOair, specialise in helping travellers find and book flights. They offer a comprehensive view of flight options from various airlines, allowing users to compare prices, timings, and routes. Many of these platforms also provide additional services like car rentals and hotel bookings, making them a convenient option for planning a trip.

How does an OTA for hotels work?

Typically, there will be a whole profile of information about your hotel for the traveller to assess – the more information and images you include on your profile the better.

The details may include the features and services of the hotel, nearby attractions, customer reviews, room images, a map, as well as room types and room rates for the traveller’s preferred stay period.

Listing with one or multiple online travel agencies can dramatically increase the online visibility of your property and help bring in increased bookings and revenue.

Since all the marketing power comes from the OTA, you just have to worry about how you present your hotel and make sure guests are satisfied with their stay.

The tradeoff for this is that you will be required to pay a commission fee for each booking the OTA brings in for you. Commonly, this is around 15% of the booking.

That’s why it’s important to balance how many bookings you take from online travel agencies and how many you take directly on your website and social media channels, via an online booking engine.

How to choose the best OTAs for your hotel

Choosing the best mix of OTAs for your hotel will always depend on some individual circumstances and the goals you set yourself. This will include:

  • Your local market: There will likely be a few channels that specialise in driving bookings to your country and/or destination
  • Your ideal target market: Some channels will help you capture bookings from high value travellers that frequent your location
  • Your product: For instance, certain channels will specifically service luxury properties.
  • Your offerings: You can also find particular channels that are better for promoting packages, last-minute bookings etc.
  • Your strategy: How many bookings will you be looking to drive via online travel agencies, versus your direct channels like your website and social media pages?

As you can see, there’s never going to be a one-size-fits-all approach to choosing the channels you partner with. It requires you to:

  • Have a clear plan in place first
  • Perform in-depth analysis of your options
  • Identify how you will execute your strategy with the right tech solutions.

For instance, the more channels you connect to the more vital your property management system and channel manager become.

Integrating these two systems will help keep your reservation data accurate, automated, and up-to-date – and ensure you have proper reporting functions available to measure channel and business performance.

Online travel agencies list

With all of the above being said, there are certainly a number of well-known online travel agencies that travellers around the world use to plan and book their travel.

There are literally hundreds of online travel sites where travellers can book hotels and other travel services, so knowing who the big players are is important.

However, it can also be useful to be aware of some of the more niche OTAs which cater to specific traveller personas, or those that are specific to your region. An example of this is Mr & Mrs Smith, which is dedicated to boutique and luxury properties.

Here’s a list of some of the most popular online travel agencies with travellers:

  • Booking.com – Booking.com is recognised as the global leader of OTAs, proving to be one of the most popular booking channels for travellers across all segments and parts of the world.
  • Expedia – Another big player but Expedia is also known for being especially valuable to travellers looking to book packages.
  • Agoda – Particularly popular in Asian markets
  • Mr & Mrs Smith – Dedicated to boutique and luxury properties.
  • Airbnb – Specialises in small or unique properties and properties that provide a ‘home away from home’ experience for travellers.
  • Lastminute.com – As the name suggests, great for those looking for last minute stays, especially in Europe.
  • Orbitz – Big player for the American market.
  • Skyscanner – A common choice for travellers on a budget.
  • Hotels.com – Features a powerful rewards system that draws in frequent travellers. 
  • Priceline.com – Another popular discount travel choice.
  • HRS.com – Primarily aimed at business travellers.
  • Trip.com – The largest OTA in one of the largest countries on Earth, China.
  • Travelocity – Features special rewards for travellers who undertake volunteer activities.
  • Kayak – One of the big players in the metasearch market, promoting accommodation to a large swathe of travellers.
  • HotelTonight – Travellers seeking out great deals on last minute bookings go to HotelTonight.
  • Wotif – A specialist in the Australian market.
  • TripAdvisor Aggregates reviews for hotels, restaurants and tourism activities.
  • VRBO – Short for Vacation Rentals by Owners, similar to Airbnb specialising in unique properties where property owners can list their homes for rent. 

These are just some of the most popular channels we can list but there are literally hundreds available, some of which may suit your property better. 

For example, Travelocity is a channel that rewards travellers who are undertaking volunteering missions. Meanwhile, Intrepid caters to adventure travellers and partners with hostels and backpacking accommodation providers.

Other OTA websites: Traveliko

Traveliko, by iko.travel, is a unique online channel in that it offers the same opportunities as traditional online travel agencies but on a model that requires no commission.

Operating in an attempt to remove the ‘middle man’, iko.travel promises hotels will have full control over listings, promotions, packages, and price integrity.

While most OTAs might offer a subscription based membership, Traveliko offers hoteliers a listing on the site for free with channel manager integration such as SiteMinder, no minimum room allocation applied, and up to 100 bookings a month (or bookings to the value of $1000 (USD).

Hoteliers using Traveliko are able to make the most of the features they’ve become accustomed to on traditional online sales channels. Operators can package add-ons, upload videos, and provide information on amenities such as restaurants, spas, and activities.

All this makes Traveliko a content rich platform and hotels are encouraged to maximise guest loyalty by offering some freebies and attractive member rates to Traveliko users.

This gives context to the world of options available to hoteliers looking to sell their rooms online. There will be an OTA strategy that works best for you but as a starting point, you need to know what your options are.

Brands such as TripAdvisor, Hotels.com, Booking.com, and Expedia garner the most mainstream attention thanks to huge budgets but travellers are becoming more savvy all the time, and will put in the necessary time to find the best deals wherever they may be. In this respect, it’s important to connect to a broad range of channels.

Download the SiteMinder report for full lists and analysis on a market level.

OTA travel reviews: Quick tips for hotel marketers

On the surface, it would seem that online travel agencies directly compete with independent hoteliers — but the reality is they often become a valuable partner.

Independent hoteliers must create partnerships with online travel agencies that require them to pay commissions when their rooms are sold, but it must be appreciated that the properties would not be as discoverable without the incredible visibility of the OTAs.

OTAs have massive marketing budgets, and they dominate the search engine results page for just about any travel-related keyword. You can’t beat the OTAs at the online marketing game, so you need to work with them as a distribution partner.

But how can you make sure your property is ranking highly on OTA listings? Optimising your profile is crucial, which we’ll talk about later, but one major concern is reviews. The more positive reviews you have, the more likely it is that travellers will discover your hotel’s profile.

Ways to improve reviews:

  • Ask guests to leave a review while they’re staying at your hotel
  • Follow-up with emails after their stay
  • Always respond to all reviews
  • Never leave any comments unresolved
  • Don’t get defensive
  • Limit the amount of staff that respond to reviews

While there’s nothing you can do to change the experience a guest may have had before leaving a review, you can make sure their concerns are acknowledged and acted upon, or their praise appreciated.

You can increase the amount of positive reviews by having a system in place to collect real-time feedback when guests are still at your hotel. If you can resolve any concerns here, then it’s likely the publicly posted feedback won’t be negative.

Even bad reviews don’t have to spell disaster – how you handle the complaint or feedback could determine the ultimate outcome and the impression you leave on prospective guests.

OTA hotel bookings: Winning guest reservations

Winning guest bookings on online travel agencies is much the same as winning them directly – first impressions count!

One of the biggest first impressions you can make is with the images of your property and its interior. Travellers want to see what they’re paying for and if what they see is a grainy, blurry, or poorly framed image they won’t be racing to open their wallets.

If you can’t produce high quality photography yourself, paying for it will be worth every penny in the long run. You should also make sure you update your images every couple of years and every time you renovate or refurbish your property. Have these ready before you start listing on OTAs.

1. Assess how your hotel should work with online travel agents

Generally, the more OTA channels you connect with, the better. But you also need to be strategic about which ones you choose as partners. You first need to research your market and see what channels they’re most likely to be using. You have to look beyond the four or five biggest channels and find partners that most suit your target market.

For instance, if you’re in an adventure capital, such as Queenstown in New Zealand, you might consider connecting with niche online travel agencies like STA Travel who target young, active travellers. Or if your guests are commonly Chinese, you simply have to be looking at Trip.com to gain more of these sought-after bookings.

2. Capitalise on The Billboard Effect created by online channels

Just because a traveller finds your hotel on an OTA doesn’t mean they’ll always book on the OTA. Often they’ll visit your website once they discover you. This is called The Billboard Effect and it’s where you have the opportunity to win back revenue.

When a traveller does land on your website you need to make it as appealing as possible for them to make a booking there, instead of heading back to the OTA or even another hotel. If they don’t find the same room types, names, pictures, and policies they get frustrated.

You can also win travellers over with great content, packages, and appealing deals. Use a blog to broadcast helpful information, news, and travel tips. Establish an online booking engine to house your special packages and rates helping you capture guests directly.

3. Use data to market better

The most valuable tool at your disposal as a hotelier is data, especially when it comes to your potential guests.

You want to drive more bookings at your property, but marketing blindly to the masses is not the way to do it. You first need to narrow down who your target market should be, and how you can actually reach them effectively.

This might not be constant either, at different times of the year you might have different priorities or travellers may have different habits. That’s why it’s so important to have access to valuable data and be analysing it frequently.

There are many places you can find this data, including from online travel agencies, which often publish guides on how you can target specific audiences to boost your conversions and bookings.

How to get the most out of online travel agencies

To make sure you get the full benefit of OTAs and their reach, there are a number of steps you should follow to optimise your hotel’s profile.

Given your hotel is a brand, your marketing efforts should be consistent across all channels. Don’t save your best images and content just for your website, make sure this is also on the OTA websites.

Similar to search engines such as Google, online travel agencies have their own algorithms for how your property will rank. Here are six easy steps to optimise your hotel’s OTA profile:

1. Accurately manage your inventory

Because the availability of your rooms will fluctuate due to peak periods or seasonal changes, you need to maintain an accurate inventory across all online travel agencies to keep your occupancy rate high.

Using a channel manager with pooled inventory is the best way to achieve this because travellers won’t be disrupted by double booking issues or incorrect data.

2. Cleverly manage your rates and promotions

Guests don’t simply use OTAs for a wide range of choice and inspiration, often they’re looking for last minute deals and offers.

If you have time-sensitive promotions they’ll have more chance of being caught and you can more easily sell the remainder of your rooms.

It’s not hard to make alterations on online travel agencies to highlight a particular rate or capitalise on seasonal events to attract more guests to your property profile.

3. Carefully respond to reviews

While only 14% of consumers trust traditional advertising, 92% respect reviews on sites such as TripAdvisor. Reviews on online travel agencies are traditionally reliable because guests can only post a review after they’ve stayed at the property. However, only 36% of hoteliers respond to reviews on OTA sites. It’s important to do an efficient job of managing online reviews.

4. Consider paid advertising

This doesn’t have to be restricted to big and rich hotel corporations. It can also be a viable option for independent hotels on a pay-per-click basis. While paid advertising is no guarantee of more bookings, it will help put your property front-of-mind. If your content and aesthetic is strong enough, you should see a rise in revenue and your OTA ranking.

5. Focus on specific markets

Narrowing down your targets will mean you impact a lower volume of customers but you’re also more likely to secure the bookings you want if you use certain time periods, events, geo-targeting or other methods to target specific audiences.

6. Understand your competition

It’s vital to know who the similar players in your market are so you aren’t significantly underselling or overselling your rooms. If you are, you won’t be able to compete. On top of this, being aware of their activity may provide an opportunity to snare extra bookings. For example, changing rates could indicate the occupancy of a competitor or a promotion based on something you could also benefit from. There are specific data systems hotels can use to monitor competitors.

With an optimised OTA profile, your hotel will not only gain bookings from third-party channels but direct traffic to your website should also increase, helping you to offset the commission fee you pay.

Best practices to boost your hotel’s OTA bookings

Choosing the right channels for your hotel is the first step to boosting bookings at your hotel, but there are a few things you can do to increase your chances of success.

Here are some best practices to help you win over guests on your booking channels:

  • Work with your OTA market manager: This will help you take advantage of any campaigns.
  • Diversify: Traveller behaviour, motivations, and preferences are changing all the time, so it’s helpful to have a mix of channels to capture the largest audience possible.
  • Make sure your brand mission is front and centre: People want to know what you stand for, and what you believe in. For example, there’s a growing appetite for properties which have sustainability practices and policies in place.
  • Work on your reputation and promotions: Travellers like online travel agencies so much because they are a one-stop-shop where they can search for accommodation, compare prices, find deals, and check reviews. You need to make sure you’re optimising every part of your online presence.
  • Use a channel manager: Without a channel manager, handling more than a few OTA connections at a time will become almost impossible without encountering data errors and double bookings.

Gain more bookings and revenue with an OTA channel manager

To find the best OTA channel manager for your hotel, there are a few things to keep in mind as you research potential investments:

  • The amount and variety of channel connections
  • Features and ease of use
  • Integration capabilities
  • Reviews and reputation
  • Training and support offered
  • Free trial period

For many years, SiteMinder’s channel manager has been considered the world’s most powerful hotel channel manager, with superior connections, integration, functionality, and security. Now, as part of SiteMinder’s hotel commerce platform, it’s even more enabled to help your hotel succeed.

SiteMinder, as a leading hotel software platform, can be your partner in your journey to success, offering numerous benefits:

  • Maximise Revenue: SiteMinder’s advanced technology allows you to manage room rates and availability across all your distribution channels in real-time. This not only helps in selling as many rooms as possible but also in securing those valuable last-minute bookings, thereby maximising your revenue.
  • Improve Operational Efficiency: With SiteMinder, you can automate your hotel operations, from managing online travel agencies to handling direct bookings. This not only reduces the risk of overbooking but also frees up your time to focus on enhancing the guest experience.
  • Drive Direct Bookings: SiteMinder’s online booking engine integrates seamlessly with your website, enabling guests to book directly with ease. This not only improves the guest booking experience but also increases your profitability by eliminating OTA commission fees.

Don’t let your hotel rooms stay vacant. Embrace the power of SiteMinder and transform your hotel sales strategy today. Get started with SiteMinder and see the difference it can make in improving your hotel sales.

By Dean Elphick

Dean is the Senior Content Marketing Specialist of SiteMinder, the leading technology provider delivering hoteliers unbeatable revenue results. Dean has made writing and creating content his passion for the entirety of his professional life, which includes more than six years at SiteMinder. Through content, Dean aims to provide education, inspiration, assistance and value for accommodation businesses looking to improve the way they run their operations achieve their goals.

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