Competition among marketplace rivals in the travel and tourism sector can be intense, and standing out can be tough. So, how can you best build your brand, attract new customers, and boost revenue?
Operators such as hop-on hop-off bus companies or cruise lines, in-destination attractions, and tour and activity providers must find answers to these questions. It’s key to long-term success.
In a previous blog, we discussed using distribution to increase sales. Here, we’re exploring why it makes sense for tour operators and visitor attractions around the world to partner with an online travel agency (OTA).
Online travel agencies offer increased visibility and reach
OTAs cater to a huge range of interests and pursuits, and allow your business to reach a global audience with minimal effort. Taking your products or services to market via an OTA helps ensure you reach ready-to-book customers fast. And with their established user base, they’re perfectly placed to push your tours to the right consumers worldwide.
By listing your tours or services with an online travel agency, you:
- expand your customer base
- reach millions of travellers across the globe
- enable customers to find and buy your products easily
“Year over year, we are noticing an increase in bookings and volume, and in 2023, we doubled our revenue.”
Martina Giuberi, Customer Operations Specialist, Cesarine Cookery School
SEO and the marketing benefits of working with OTAs
With stiff competition among rival operators, margins are slim and every advantage counts. Online travel agencies offer optimised search engine visibility, which puts more eyes on your products. Your OTAs of choice promote your tours on Google, helping ensure they’re seen by an engaged and ready-to-book international audience.
And with stronger SEO credentials baked in, operators listing their products with OTAs typically capture more advanced business ahead of time too – reducing reliance on walk-ups.
Access valuable analytics, insights, and guidance with your OTAs of choice
Millions of searches and purchases occur on OTAs’ platforms daily, and they harvest valuable data on customer behaviour, buyer preferences, and purchasing patterns. By selling through a reputable OTA, you’ll access this data for your own benefit – analysing useful information on booking windows, popular routes and activities, peak dates, customer demographics, and more.
Reputable OTAs offer guidance on market trends and customer expectations, which can help you improve your product offerings. This boosts customer satisfaction and helps keep you competitive. You could even use your OTA access to test demand for new products, with lower risk and minimal cost.
Save time and money on direct marketing
Investing in direct marketing, buying into Google’s paid advertising services, overhauling your website copy, engaging a marketing agency, or enhancing your social media presence are all sensible ways to build your business. But when done properly, these services all cost time and money.
For a hassle-free way to get your products to market with minimal effort – and reap the financial rewards faster – listing your products with a select number of online travel agencies can be an easy win.
You’ll pay around 20 – 25% commission on each booking, but those are bookings that you’d otherwise likely have missed. Plus, the OTA’s fixed ‘per booking’ fee is typically preferable to those sometimes unpredictable direct marketing costs.
Benefit from flexible pricing strategies
Very few OTAs offer dynamic pricing models at the moment – they’re a little behind the curve compared to organisations like hotels and airlines. But they do typically offer flexible pricing strategies, so you’re free to adjust your tour prices based on demand – just as you do on your website. You may have to abide by established pricing structures, but you’ll retain the ability to experiment with the prices of your listed products.
This flexible approach means you can adjust your pricing according to seasonality – raising your prices during peak seasons and dropping them in low seasons. By driving bookings to fill gaps in your availability, you’ll be in a stronger position to keep your business profitable all year round.
Enjoy effortless inventory management with your partnered OTA
Keeping on top of availability is paramount when distributing your tours through a range of different channels. Reputable online travel agencies offer real-time inventory management, so the live availability of your tours is always shown correctly online. This way, you prevent double bookings, avoid missed sales, and automatically maintain an accurate product inventory.
Efficient payment handling and processing
Managing payments, cancellations, and refunds is an administrative job that takes up valuable time. Secure payment handling and processing is a huge part of the service OTAs offer, and customer payments can typically be transferred to you in the time frame that meets your needs.
These key processes are handled swiftly and conveniently by the OTA, further enhancing the customer experience. And with payment handling and customer support covered, you’re free to focus your time on perfecting your products and delivering premium quality tours.
The benefit of OTA membership – exceptions to the rule?
There are operators for whom partnering with an OTA may be slightly less beneficial. For example, hop-on hop-off sightseeing companies rely more heavily on revenue from walk-ups than on revenue from pre-booked customers. There’s a trend we’ve seen over recent years showing that even in such cases, though, OTA membership can still reap rewards.
The more hop-on hop-off bus companies there are operating in a city, the more likely they are to be partnered with an OTA. As customers become overwhelmed with too many bus sightseeing options, they check the ratings on OTAs like Viator or Get Your Guide, and then book there. The point is any extra exposure an operator can get through partnering with an OTA is still relevant and helpful.
You’ll find more helpful advice about offering your products through an OTA to maximise your sales reach on our Palisis integrations page.