Disparities and Direct Bookings

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This is a guest blog by our valued partner – Triptease.

Hot headline news this year has been a lot of talk on direct bookings and revamped loyalty schemes. Hotels have found their voice and a growing number seem to be driving direct business with a view to increasing revenue. One particular initiative that has helped push direct bookings is tech start-up Triptease’s very own Disparity Dungeon.

It’s a hotelier’s best friend when it comes to direct business. The Disparity Dungeon is a data platform that displays various OTA rates against your official direct price for a given room. By having this digital live-feed all in one place, hoteliers are able to keep track of when exactly they are being undercut and by which third-party. As a response to a disparity should one show up, hoteliers can then act accordingly by contacting the relevant OTA to eliminate the disparity.

With rate parity being such a controversial topic at the moment, the Disparity Dungeon comes at no better time. By building transparency, the platform has modernised the hospitality industry ecosystem. Before hotels would have had to manually check OTA websites to find disparities, but the tool has simplified the process and made monitoring easy.

So we understand how the platform works, but what significance does it have for a hotel’s direct booking rate? Simple. By removing disparities, the direct price is no longer being undercut. That means potential guests aren’t finding a cheaper price somewhere else online. That’s so important given that a large number of people think that OTA prices are cheaper than those on official hotel websites. It’s time for that to change.

While on the theme of direct bookings, Triptease will be hosting the very first ever Direct Booking Summit on Thursday 30th June. Showcasing a first-class speaker setlist, come expecting the likes of Google, TripAdvisor and Skyscanner to take to the stage alongside leading figures from Premier Inn, Marriott and CitizenM. A wealth of senior delegates from IHG to Pestana will be attending and topics look to include talk on meta, chatbots, rate parity regulation and, of course, the benefits of direct booking.

If you haven’t already, think about getting rid of your pesky disparities and watch your direct bookings soar. It’s proven to be one killer revenue strategy.