The goal of metasearch campaigns is clear: to increase direct sales in the long term and sustainably, thus building up another strong sales channel to get rid of the dependence on online travel agencies. An important success factor is price. With the right rate structure, you can provide the customer with the most attractive price on your website, giving them a good reason to book directly with you. You should always keep a close eye on the prices of OTAs, tour operators etc. We will show you how this can work in an uncomplicated way.
Price as a success factor for metasearch campaigns
Metasearch campaigns not only enhance your online visibility, but also increase your website visitors and consequently your direct sales. However, a successful campaign is definitely not a foregone conclusion, but depends on various aspects. One of the most important aspects is the price.
While online travel agencies profit from their high profile and thus encourage users to book, you can also gain a decisive advantage in the metasearch competition by directly linking your hotel website with the best price. For the majority of users, the price is still the decisive incentive to book a hotel.
But the best price offers you even more advantages:
- lower commission costs
- Data of your target group/ guests
- proven fewer cancellations
- better customer loyalty
Why are competitors sometimes offering lower rates?
In the price comparison on metasearches it is often the case that a large number of providers are offering rates on the same hotel. Since booking.com, zenhotels & co. also know that the price is the key argument for potential hotel guests, the providers also try to offer the lowest rate, for example by reducing their own margin.
Sometimes it is also due to the hotel itself as special conditions are switched on the OTAs, which are not offered on their own website. The reason behind these measures is highly questionable.
Besides that, there can also be completely different reasons for undercut rates. For example, technical problems with the transmission of rates.
As you can see, there are a whole range of factors that can hinder your pricing policy.
But how do you ensure the best price?
Permanent rate monitoring is the buzz word here. This can take a lot of time manually due
to the many different providers – time that most hoteliers do not have. Moreover, it only provides
a partial view of the situation. To get a complete overview is simply not possible manually.
The solution: A tool that automatically handles rate monitoring for you, such as the
myhotelshop Rate Inspector.
With the Rate Inspector you keep control over your rates and thus create the basis for a successful metasearch campaign:
- Benefit from rate monitoring on the largest travel platforms such as Google, Trivago and TripAdvisor.
- You can see at a glance how your website performs compared to other providers of your room rates.
- 10 price checks per day per meta search: Trivago, TripAdvisor & Google Hotel Ads
- Receive price-check data for the next six months in advance.
- You can view all data in a bundled overview on the portal and easily analyze the results of the tool.
Here is what rate monitoring in the portal looks like:
Discover the reason for undercutting rates
Next to the respective hotel you will find a list of the corresponding platform of the rate check as well as further travel information of the checked date. The Rate Inspector provides you not only with information about which competitor has offered a cheaper rate, but also the exact price and your offered rate. In addition, a corresponding screenshot and a link allows you to take a closer look at the facts and check them again. Thus you get all the information you need to take any necessary steps to stop these cheaper rates from the competition in the future.
You would like to see the Rate Inspector in action? In our online seminar we will give you even more insights into the tool. Otherwise, you are of course welcome to contact us at any time.
