Ease as a Key Conversion Driver in the Direct Channel: Flexibility, Exclusivity and Variety

You dedicate significant resources to driving traffic to your official website, your primary sales platform and the main link to your booking engine, where the reservation will ultimately be completed. Therefore, once you've attracted potential guests, you can't afford to lose them. To prevent this, the first thing you must understand is that they don't want to think; they want convenience.

In this article we focus on three essential requirements to offer the convenience your users crave, and which your direct channel must meet: flexibility, exclusivity, and variety .

Spoiler alert: the solution for each of them can be found in technology.

Flexibility

Non-availability, your main point of leakage

We know you pay close attention to everything related to your sales. In fact, most business intelligence tools offer countless metrics in this area, and that's good, because understanding the reasons behind them allows you to identify patterns that you can, in theory, replicate in the future with the same effectiveness. But… what about what you've stopped selling? You might be missing out on something at least as important.

We're referring to all those inquiries that didn't return availability, becoming a critical point of contention for your direct online channel . Therefore, your primary goal should be zero unavailability , because... how can you implement conversion boosters when there are no results to boost? And from the user's perspective, is there anything more frustrating than not even getting a response?

Studying the reasons for unavailability will allow you to:

• Fixing issues : Sometimes, it's just that, a simple error that you can easily correct. For example, the absence of fares for a specific date.
• Identify opportunities : your booking engine is a source of real-time Big Data and your users' searches provide very valuable information.
• Optimize your business strategy : Properly analyzing all this information allows you to refine your business strategy, for example, by modifying your minimum stay restrictions, creating new room types, or adapting to the lead time of certain markets.

Smart redirects and other allies of interest

Perhaps your hotel doesn't have a triple room, you're convinced that during peak season you only want stays of 6 nights or more, or you simply have 100% occupancy on a particular date. Does this mean you shouldn't return availability when the search parameters don't meet these requirements? Not necessarily, because technology offers the flexibility you can't provide. Here are some solutions to the most common reasons for unavailability:

• Lack of Pricing : Make sure to set up pricing for 1 or 2 years in advance, even if you're not sure what the right price will be at that point and you need to cover your bases. It's better to be considered expensive than to be considered nothing at all.
• Entire Hotel : You can enable On Request Reservations (a cancellation for some translates into a confirmation for others) or offer alternative dates close to the inquiry date. In both cases, you ensure they reach the first step of the process (room selection).
• Minimum stay restrictions : We're not suggesting you change your sales approach, but a smart stay redirect, in addition to restoring availability, can help you increase your revenue. How? By offering the price for 6 nights (your minimum stay) for a 4-night stay (the requested number). The guest might be willing to pay, and you'll double the room's profitability by being able to resell the two nights that weren't occupied but for which the guest paid. Everyone's happy!
• Occupancy restrictions : The user is looking for a triple room that isn't in your inventory, but instead of responding "I don't have a triple room," you respond "I don't have a triple room, but I can offer you a double and a single." This is how smart occupancy redirection works. It might not be their preferred option, but they may be happy with that alternative. When someone is given flexibility, they also tend to be more flexible.

Exclusiveness

It generates positive disparities, but not only in price.

With availability secured through technologies that promote flexibility, it's time to activate all possible conversion enhancers to finalize the booking. Price is king, we know, and we must continue to emphasize the importance of implementing solutions designed to:

• Controlling parity (using a rate shopper like Price Seeker, for example)
• Inform the user that they are enjoying the best online price available on the direct channel (price comparison sites with OTAs and goals within the booking process, such as Rate Check)
• Ensure compliance with this promise with automated tools for matching prices with OTAs in real time, or even improving them (such as Parity Maker), always in accordance with your business rules.

But these are also the disparities that make it harder to stand out due to the economic power of the big players in the intermediary sales sector, whose high commissions allow them to sacrifice part of their profit to be more competitive and encourage more bookings to go to their platforms.

That's why we want to remind you that price disparities can take many forms, and your direct channel should offer advantageous conditions that set you apart from other players and are only available through your official website. Combining these with other aspects designed to build trust, such as consistent URLs between the website and the booking engine, or an endless calendar with different views, including a search for the cheapest month , is a winning formula. Here are some examples:

• Payment methods and options : it's not just about quantity, but personalization. In addition to enabling as many options as possible (card, bank transfer, installments, instant payments, Apple, Google, Amazon, PayPal, etc.), make sure you offer your users solutions that align with their preferences, currencies, and trusted local brands. Up to one in two bookings are lost at checkout, and features like our Retry Payment will provide various opportunities and alternatives to try to increase the likelihood of a successful transaction.
• Unique services and exclusive benefits : If anyone can make a difference by offering in-stay benefits, it's you. Advanced Additional Services allow you, for example, to configure free or discounted extras based on the booking value (transfers, late check-out, early check-in), offer exclusive benefits that will also help you increase the average spend and leverage your facilities (discounts on services or restaurants), upgrades, and more.
• Improved UX and enriched content in room listings : features such as the digital twin or the inclusion of 360º virtual tours and/or videos will elevate the user experience to a higher level.
• Loyalty : The best way to reward your guests from their very first booking is through a loyalty program. A well-designed program tailored to your operations will enhance the booking experience and your guests' stay, encouraging them to become repeat customers. Furthermore, only through direct bookings can you create a fully customized loyalty program perfectly suited to your interests and needs.
• Voice channel : simply having a visible contact phone number increases conversion rates. Leverage a call center to cater to the preferences of your different customer profiles and contribute to omnichannel communication.

Variety

Your direct channel should be just as good as a tour operator's.

Increasingly, we're facing a type of traveler who prioritizes convenience. And thanks to technological advancements from providers like us, your direct booking channel should now be just as good as the experience of booking with a tour operator or an OTA.

However, to achieve this, you need to activate certain conversion levers. Variety is the spice of life, and the more options you offer your users, the less likely they are to look for them elsewhere.

• A diverse pricing structure : Traditional standard, flexible, and non-refundable rates are no longer enough. Your guests need more: more security, more confidence, more variety. Introduce new options such as rates with cancellation or travel assistance insurance (also available as add-ons), resellable rates, semi-non-refundable rates, and more. The goal is for each guest to find a rate that resonates with them. And don't forget to add visibility boosters to the rates that best suit their needs.
• Dynamic packages : Combine services and experiences with accommodation, without limitations, with dynamic packages. Let your guests decide which room to combine with which service, for how long of their stay, and for how many people.
• Upselling and cross-selling : These occur at different points in the booking cycle, as your guest's situation can be very different on the day of booking and two days before arrival. Take advantage of communications such as confirmation emails or pre-stay emails to offer them ways to enhance their experience and, in turn, increase the average ticket price.
• Hotel + Flight Vacation Package : Paraty Tech's booking engine is the only one on the market with native Hotel + Flight integration. This means that without redirects or URL changes, your guests can also book their flight seamlessly, adding another step to the booking process.
• Book experiences at your destination : accommodation, flights, and experiences at your destination, with immediate confirmation. The perfect combination for your guests to plan their entire vacation through your official website. All this is made possible through native integrations with strategic partners.

Bonus track: What about lost reservations?

It goes from capturing to rescuing

Despite all these efforts, many bookings will be lost along the way. Every day, dozens of potential guests abandon the process, representing high-value demand at the bottom of the funnel that, without the right tools, is lost forever. With our new Leads Panel, you can identify and organize this lead and launch outbound campaigns designed to convert that purchase intent into actual bookings.

The stage the guest is at in the booking process is not trivial, and in this case, they have already shown a genuine intention to book. In fact, this is key to the success of the Lead Panel , designed to capture lost demand from Outbound Campaigns , which are more numerous once they reach the Bottom of the Funnel (BoFu).

• EFFECTIVE : the client was one step away from confirming.
• URGENT : the shorter the lead time, the higher the probability of conversion.
• PROFITABLE : prioritize higher value bookings with filters.