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Which agents/OTAs to choose for Hostel Office Dorm Project?

Front Desk Operations

Randdy started this discussion 10 years 8 months ago

Hi there,

I'm considering to subscripe to Hostel Office Dorm Project. I'd go with the basic subscribtion which will get you the software integrating with 4 OTAs. You can choose from Hi Hostels, HostelsClub, HostelBookers, Booking.com, Agoda, HostelsWorld, TripAdvisor, and GOMIO.
Which ones would you pick?

Thanks a lot!

Randy

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slushysnow

10 years

Hi Randdy,

I just ditched Agoda due to their horrible customer service and commission rate - lowest rate is 15%. It is almost impossible to get through to a real person with Agoda when you have a problem or need to talk to someone (that being said, when I kicked up enough of a stink, Jose in the Sydney office was really good). I'd recommend steering clear of Agoda, they're more geared towards hotels anyway.

How does it connect to TripAdvisor?

Out of interest how come you can only hook up to 4? Do you have to pay extra for more beyond that?

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Randdy

10 years

Hi Slushysnow,

thanks for your answer! I'll ditch Agoda then.

They do charge you extra if you want to connect to more than just 4 agents, I don't know how much, though. From what I understand, they are directly interfacing to TripAdvisor.

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Hostel Times.com

10 years

Hello Everyone and Randy,

We would like to remind you of HostelTimes.com

We are the cheapest hostel booking engine out there. We give 5% back to the traveler and have no booking fees.

We have a large base of users, based out of Asia and we are growing stronger everyday.

If you have any questions please don't hesitate to contact us. [email protected]

HostelTimes Team

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HostelOffice

10 years

The problem we seem to continually have on this forum is software providers seeking to sell their wares that too often hijacks the conversation and shuts it down.

The conversation was asking about which OTA's are the best to choose:

The HostelOffice software focus is on enabling the hostel to gain as many direct bookings as possible which undermines the need to seek to connect with as many OTA's as possible. See how we do this by clicking here. We will do more to gain you direct 100% bed price paying guests.

Agoda has a role to play as does any major agent. Once all the roles are filled then adding more agents becomes toxic and undermines 100% bed price paying guests. Each region of the world has different dynamics so that different agents dominate in different regions. So an answer can not be most accurate about Agoda unless the country of the hostel is known.

Our booking engine is directly integrated with TripAdvisor as part of our work to enable hostels to gain as many direct bookings as possible so that guests can choose to book direct rather than only seeing OTA booking engines on this and other mediums.

The greatest cost to a hostel is a software provider that charges nothing to use their software but then causes your hostel to lose 100% bed price paying guests.

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slushysnow

10 years

Agoda definitely has a role to play, for example our experience of Agoda was that we got a very high proportion of Asian guests booking with us, so if you want to target this guest demographic then Agoda is good. Agoda does have other advantages also, such as the use of UPCs for payment, (meaning that you can actually charge your no-shows 100% of the time!).

The worst part about Agoda for me was false expectations - they're not geared towards hostels at all, for example, on your listing it says "Hotel Photos" etc. We had a lot of problems with guests arriving and expecting to check into a hotel, not a hostel and so we have instantly disappointed them without having done anything wrong. (I don't know any hotels that list dorm rooms but hey...). Booking.com have this same kind of problem, but to a much lesser extent than Agoda.

For us, Agoda's cons outweighed the pros.

HostelOffice, when you say you integrate directly with TripAdvisor, is that via a business listing? Or TripConnect?

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HostelOffice

10 years

That is good user experience about Agoda. I will talk to the Agoda people in Australia about this to see what can be done.

Our integration with TripAdvisor is in fact an integration with their TripConnect facility that TripAdvisor first requires a hostel to pay for a Business Listing before they will enable TripConnect.

So what then happens is that on the hostel's TripAdvisor page that the public see, the guest can choose to book direct in to the hostel via our integrated booking engine for the hostel.

On your hostel's Tripadvisor page you can see people can use Booking.com, Wotif, HostelWorld and HostelBookers to book in to your hostel. We provide guests a direct booking opportunity so you gain 100% bed price paying guests and not commission reduced guests.

Then of course there are tips and tricks to get your direct booking link better positioned than the OTA links.

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