You have a business website with a web booking engine, and a separate listing with an Online Travel Agent (OTA).
Customers can:
You can do this by working directly with an OTA. Examples include Booking.com, Expedia, Hotels.com, Airbnb and HomeAway.
Are you not using a channel manager (explained in stage 4)? Then you'd need to update your availability and price on your own website and for each OTA site you have a listing on.
Where you want to be and why
The benefit of working with an OTA is that you will be discoverable and bookable on both OTA and metasearch sites.
A metasearch site is a comparison site. It lets customers compare prices for your accommodation across different websites. This includes OTA websites and your own website. Think of Google Hotel Ads, Kayak, Trivago, TripAdvisor and Skyscanner.
People update metasearch or comparison sites in different ways:
If you don't use an OTA:
You may be able to use your own web booking engine to display your prices directly alongside OTA prices.
If you use an OTA:
Metasearch or comparison sites will usually pull your availability and pricing info from the OTA directly.
As such, your accommodation will:
- Gain greater exposure online
- Potential customers will have more chance of finding you
Make things even easier for yourself
Would you like to update your availability on multiple booking platforms using a single channel manager tool? Please see stage 4.