They are at the heart of most distribution strategies and require only a relatively small budget for optimal efficiency. According to Skift, OTAs were responsible for a third of bookings worldwide in 2020.
OTAs also provide the ability to optimize ads and effectively engage customers via high-quality photos. Hoteliers would like to be able to increase the proportion of direct bookings but in the current context, even the largest hotel chains in the world, despite their impressive marketing budgets, mainly rely on partnering with OTAs to reduce their inventories of unsold rooms and increase their income, especially off-season.
This is why hoteliers have every interest in deploying a mixed marketing strategy integrating collaboration with OTAs.
In addition, thanks to OTAs, hoteliers have access to market information as well as tools allowing them to target travellers, secure and better manage their reservations, as well as communicate with customers and manage reviews.
This is even more true for small establishments with limited marketing resources. An OTA will give them the opportunity to make the most of digital marketing tools and ensure a smooth online customer experience. OTAs can notably help to promote reservations over a given period or a specific length of stay, or to increase visibility at the end of the reservation period.
The main advantage of OTAs lies in the marketing and business support they can offer to hotels. But it is clear that the latter also have their own marketing cards in hand.
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