The last few years the online travel agencies (OTAs) have become very dominant and 43 % of the bookings in Europe are made from the travel agencies such as Booking, Expedia and Hotels.com. They could definitely be a helpful tool for your hotel and hostel to reach more guests, but they are also very expensive (high commission) and need to be used with caution.
From what we have heard from our customers and read from others, many of the hotel owners feel a frustration that the commission paid to the OTAs are unjustifiably high. Fortunately, there are ways to reduce the dependence of the OTAs and small improvements on many different levels can increase your profits substantially. We will show you with an easy calculation that an improvement can make a big difference for your profits.
Let us say your hotel charges 100€ per room and night, and 15 of them come from an OTA today. If you could reduce that number to 10 and have five bookings coming from your website or via a phone call instead the potential savings will be up to 20€ per booking. After a year that could potentially save you 20€ (per booking)*5 (number per day)*365 (days) which is 36 500€ per year. It is not an easy job, but as you can see, the reward could be a possible game changer for the business.
