Do you find it frustrating that you’re unable to leverage your marketing efforts to guests after they’ve stayed because they booked through an OTA?
It’s time to do something about it!
Reduce your reliance on online travel agents and increase your direct bookings with the Front Desk Report from our powerful Reporting Suite.
What is an OTA email address?
There’s no doubt that OTAs play a huge part in generating hotel bookings. But with the substantial commission rates of many OTAs, it’s vital that hotels don’t rely on them too much and instead focus on increasing their direct bookings.
But what is an OTA email? It’s a temporary unique email address that replaces a guest’s real email address when they book. This is created by the OTA that the guest booked through e.g., Booking.com or Hotels.com. This allows you to communicate with the guest but only for a small period of time, because 14 days after the guest departs from your hotel, the temporary email address expires.
What is the benefit of having a guest’s real email address?
When you don’t have a guest’s real email address, there’s no opportunity to stay connected with them once they’ve left your property. Meaning that you can’t send them your amazing email marketing campaigns to entice them back to your hotel.
Put simply, you can’t turn that one-time guest into a loyal returning guest who books directly with you!
Converting OTA email addresses into valid ones should be a top priority for your hotel, because the more valid email addresses you have the more you:
- Increase your chances of direct bookings
- Drive revenue
- Maximise your marketing efforts
- Improve the overall satisfaction of your guests
Why is it important to have real email addresses?
Having real actionable data is key to the success of your business. With real email addresses in your database, you can send future communication directly to your guest’s inbox encouraging them to return to your hotel.
Here’s an example of how having real email addresses allows you to utilise the data and information you have on your guests:
Segment all of the guests who stayed last Valentine’s Day (using the very powerful For-Sight query engine) and then turn those one-night stays into something more by sending them an email campaign promoting a 15% discount for this year’s Valentine’s Day weekend.
How do you convert OTA emails addresses into real ones?
The first step in increasing the number of valid emails and decreasing the number of OTA emails is by equipping your front desk staff with the vital tools they need to see which guests arriving today still have an OTA email address.
Our essential Front Desk Report allows users to not only see key information about the guests arriving soon, but it also shows whether they have a valid email address or not, making it super easy for these to be converted during check-in.
By creating a fun incentive for your front desk staff, you can increase your OTA conversion rate and enhance the quality of your data.
What else can the Front Desk Report do?
The Front Desk Report gives users a quick snapshot of who is arriving at the hotel, what their RFM status is and other key bits of information about their booking.
Is there a platinum guest arriving tomorrow? How about rewarding their loyalty by offering them a room upgrade or free bottle of bubbly?
Users can also quickly identify the marketing preferences of the guests arriving, another important thing to convert during check-in!
Want to seriously increase your direct bookings and make your data work for you? To book a free demo with one of our team and see how For-Sight can seriously enhance your guest experience and revenue, click here.
