Hotels need to improve their competitive performance and
monitoring of metasearch channels finds new research.
Hotels aren’t bidding enough on metasearch sites or
monitoring the space effectively, affecting their bottom lines and brand
loyalty, says EyeforTravel
and Fornova’s new The State of
Hospitality Distribution: Metasearch white paper, which is free to download
now.
Data from the
white paper drawn from nearly 10 million searches on meta engines in 2018
reveals that just 34% of bids monitored featured a direct link posted by a
hotel.
Across March, April, and May 2018, less than a third of the
shops made by data partner Fornova on meta sites had a direct hotel option
being displayed. This rate reached a low of 18% in March 2018 and rose to a
high of 28% of shops made in May. Ranking for hotels was also low on the sites
monitored, with hotels’ bids coming in at the sixth-ranked option on average in
May 2018.
This is allowing OTAs to dominate the space, one which is
increasingly crucial for attracting consumers. More than 90% of consumers
report using meta sites for price comparison when booking accommodation but the
vast majority of bids and outbound traffic from these hugely popular sites,
including Google, TripAdvisor, and trivago are benefitting Online Travel
Agencies (OTAs) finds the
white paper.
Furthermore, hotels are being undercut by both their
contracted OTA partners and by third parties working without agreements. The
research finds that contracted OTAs are undercutting by an average of 5-6% on
meta sites and by an even higher 10-11% by non-contracted OTAs. This means the
consumer, who is largely driven by value, is frequently seeing better rates
than hotels direct bids, meaning wasted spend and lost data and brand loyalty. When
the consumer is searching 14 days or less out from their stay, the research
found that they would see a lower bid the majority of the time from multiple
actors.
This is a battle for hotels as the average hotel usually
falls short of the labour and technological resources to do so. Furthermore, as
Fornova CEO Dori Stein points out, there’s
no way for a hotel’s revenue or e-commerce manager to know what meta engines
are showing their guests in different countries because of the varying IP
addresses. “Unless the hotel has a way to monitor its top inbound source
markets, it’s a losing battle,” he added.
Chatchai Pongprapat, assistant vice president, revenue
management at Dusit International
appreciates the issue, “There is crossover between all of the different players
on various channels and that makes it very hard to maintain rate integrity,” he
said. The company’s solution has been to partner with Fornova, which polices
the rates and helps Pongprapat to maintain rate integrity and partner
behaviour.
More effective monitoring and activity on metasearch sites
can have a very real effect on the bottom line: “We felt we weren’t featured
very visibly as their models evolved and so we hired a third party that could
constantly monitor our meta campaigns and make them effective programs,” said Preferred
Hotels & Resorts, Global Vice President, Revenue Optimization, Rhett Hirko.
Meta-driven bookings jumped 30% after Preferred began working with a
third-party partner to manage meta campaigns. They determine the best ROI from
each individual meta site based on the budget Preferred dedicates to the
channel, as well as meta sites’ performance for Preferred based on
click-through volumes. Hirko noted that in terms of how cost effective the move
was, “it took a while to tweak the program, but we’re definitely getting good returns
for our investment.”
For more on how metasearch is shaping the digital accommodation market, download the free white paper now.
This white paper, made in conjunction with Fornova, gives real-world data on hotel, wholesaler and OTA bidding strategies, alongside consumer behaviours, and meta success metrics. Use these to understand the channel, the competitive landscape and build a winning strategy!
Learn the following from this white paper:
- The state of the metasearch market.
- Market penetration rates among consumers and hotels.
- Consumer behaviours on metasearch.
- OTA bidding strategies.
- Techniques to succeed on metasearch.
- The outlook for meta.
