With all the talk of the increased commission rates by Hostelworld I threw together this list if anyone is interested
1. Don't lose commission on direct bookings by using OTA Booking engines on your website.
Use a channel manager such as Myallocator that includes a booking engine for your website.
2. Make sure your contact details are easy to access on your website
It is very important to have both a phone number and email address as well as very specific directions to your hostel.
3. Check all links and menus that they are working.
Often over time links are changed and this looks unprofessional when a link leads to nowhere.
4. Spellcheck all your text. Make sure whatever language you are using that every word is spelled correctly. This again looks unprofessional and if key words are not spelled correctly then this can affect search engine searches.
5. Translate your page. Many of your guests do not speak your native language. Make sure to translate your page where possible. It is better to use a human translator instead of Google. Often you could advertise a free stay for a guest to translate your website into their language.
6. Make sure pricing and information in regards facilities are up to date.
If you have no facilities on site make sure to advertise them on your website.
Also if a customer arrives after reading an old facility they will be disappointed if it is not available.
7. Give the information on your area. The more information on what to do the longer they will stay.
You could make sample itineraries for 3 days or 1 weeks stay at your hostel.
8. Use Social media. Make sure to have a presence at least on Facebook and respond to guests if they send you messages this way.
9. If there is events in your area advertise them on your website. When people are searching for these events your website may also feature. But make sure to remove old events and keep this up to date.
10. Show ratings and reviews of your property on your website.
Many review sites give you free widgets to display on your website.
Just be careful as sometimes sending them to the review site will list OTA'S that they can book your hostel with.
There are many other ways to improve but these I believe are the quickest and cheapest ways to improve your online presence. Many of these can be tasks done by your receptionist when they are not so busy waiting for customers to check in
10 years
We use Myallocator together with the booking engine from IWB on our site. They take 5%, but I still think it is worth it as it connect directly to Myallocator. We used to have software that took bookings from our site, but it didn't synch with any other site. The 5% commission is reasonable in my opinion. Dealing with OTAs now is just part of the business and almost impossible to get away from these days.
10 years
If you are running a booking script on your website, it's only a small step to include it into a facebookpage, so people can book directly through facebook.
I did this with our (self written) very basic booking engine. All the code is running on our website but it's included into our Facebook page as an App. If people allow it to access the personal datas, the booking form is filled alraedy with name and eMail when they open it, so they have only to add arrival date, number of beds and days - click a button to show price and availability and one more click on BOOK and it's done.
10 years
Very nice.
I use the booking engine provided by myallocator and for facebook I put that code in an iframe.
10 years
Hmmm. I wrongly got the impression Myallocator was part of IWB. Dooh! We have already paid up one year in advance, so might have to wait to go with myallocator directly.
So if you take bookings through Myallocator, how do they handle deposits? I mean, can people pay a deposit with a CC and how do you get the money later?
I want to give loventis a try as we have no proper PMS right now. I am not sure if we can get it to link up though as IWB have their own PMS at about $20 a month.
10 years
Through my website with the myallocator booking engine they take all details including credit card details.
I have access to them.
You could take deposit using a credit card machine but I only take the details for security and I get them to pay the full amount on arrival.
I use bananadesk as a PMS which links in with myallocator.
9 years
I would also include...
-Have a title that humans and Google crawlers can understand
-Include great, professional pictures taken on a sunny day
-Make sure that your site is credible (include testimonials and awards)
-Use social proof (Facebok widgets)
8 years
Good article John.
Regarding point 10. Review sites may offer a widget but they typically take your website visitor away from your website to read the reviews = bad.
InnovaReviews.com enable hostel owners to collect and publish reviews directly on to their own website, keeping the user on their website near the 'Book now' button or the phone number = good.
There's a free 30 day trial of InnovaReviews, and it's really low cost per month after that anyway - it works!
8 years
Good article indeed. However I would like to comment point 1:
"Don't lose commission on direct bookings by using OTA Booking engines on your website. Use a commission-free channel manager such as Xotelia that includes a booking engine."
The booking engine, together with the channel manager and the expertise of rental professionals, is the perfect recipe to make your business grow and get stronger on the internet.
Make sure to think of your management system as part of your online commercial strategy. The commercial team also helps you to choose which OTAs are best adapted to your specific business.
:)
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