Direct booking versus OTAs, who's winning? Is it time to re-evaluate your booking strategy? Part 2

ood morning Accommodation Managers and Hosts,  The year is almost at a close! For me, the year has been the fastest, slow year I have been through in my life. I am sure a lot of you would feel the same. But here we are, just a handful of days away from Christmas, with a truly phenomenal guest.  What better way to kick off the holiday season than by bringing back Peter Syme for part two? He gave us so much wisdom last week, and I am keen to share the rest of his insights.  Booking engines and OTAs are always going to be a favourite topic of mine (ahem! Ibooked.online) but let’s face it, where your bookings come from is one of the most important pieces of your businesses strategy. Airbnb, Booking.com & VRBO are a good way to start, but when guests rave about your place, do you want them to mention you, or Airbnb? Peter shares a ton of knowledge that he brings from his time running Rafting.co.uk and being in the tour business for the tour space for a few decades. We discuss the state of travel, customer behaviour on OTA’s, and some of the best practices that you can put in place today to not only compete but to use OTAs to your advantage. We give you some great gems on how you can reclaim some of your guests, the balance between your booking engines, and drive more direct bookings to your business.  For those of you that missed it last week, Peter Syme is the founder of Disrupt Travel. Peter is an accomplished, forward-thinking, and customer-driven visionary, whose talents are legion. He is a tour industry veteran, adventure specialist, strategic advisor, and world-renowned speaker. I gleaned so much from this episode, so all I'm saying is...you might want to have a notebook ready! Notes 00:00 Direct booking versus OTAs, who's winning? Is it time to re-evaluate your booking strategy? with Peter Syme 00:50 OTA’s vs Direct Bookings 05:45 Guest/customer benefits of booking directly 07:06 Opportunities for STR hosts in this revolution of travel 09:11 How Google My Business is streamlining their platform 10:33 Opening up channels for direct communication 14:28 Simplest way to convert an OTA booking to a direct booking 16:28 Direct bookings, it’s a constant daily investment 20:23 Finding the balance between OTAs and direct booking Have a great week!  ----  📣   Listen to the episode here 👓   Watch the episode here   Bart Sobies Founder iBooked.Online "Making you more money since 2011"