Gain OTA and Third Party Business at Your Hotel

Title: Third Party Market Managers

Objective: Better placement on third party sites due to relationship with Market Managers

Dates: Ongoing

Target: Third Party Market Managers for:

· Expedia/Hotels.com

· Travelocity

· Orbitz

Strategy: Develop a relationship with the third party market managers in order to achieve better

placement on websites.

Elements:

· Maintain rate parity on all third party sites

· Establish depths of discount that will generate best possible placement on the sites; work

with the market manager to ensure that incremental discounting results in better placement

· Review your placement/position on each site weekly

· Ask your market manager for each site to send your month or bi-weekly production report

for booking patterns

· Check room types being offered on each site compared to competitive hotels to ensure you

are offering the best available rate

· Update content/marketing text and room descriptions every six months

· Ask your market manager to add value add tags

· Read your reviews and respond to them in a timely and professional manner

· Be sure to contact your market manager on a regular basis and build that relationship

· Send your market managers gifts and thank you notes just like you would a potential client

Cost: None

Evaluation: Monitor ecommerce dashboard reports for increase in third party room nights

Notes: Expedia, Travelocity and Orbitz are the main websites, but keep in mind there are many more and Hospitality Helpers has an extensive list that they can manage and work for you.