Forget OTAs. This is your biggest direct booking opportunity.

Hey hotelier,
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When bookings come in soft, what do hotels do?
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Go find more traffic.
Throw out a promo to the OTAs.

Yes, you nailed it.
Another campaign, searching for a bigger audience, one more channel to sign up for.
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I admit, that was my instinct too once upon a time.
It feels like you're taking action.
You're being proactive.

But after analyzing hotel booking paths, I see it differently now.
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The most valuable revenue isn't more people or more traffic in your booking flow; it's already there.
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Guests are finding you.
Guests are comparing you.
Guests are sitting on the booking page with a credit card in hand.
But what are they doing? Many are leaving.
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This moment usually gets the least attention in the entire marketing plan.
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My hope is that by the end of this email, you'll see the power in a decimal point.

Take a property I am working with now.
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This hotel draws about 46,967 visits a quarter and books 1.89% of them.
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The goal is to reach 2.49% over the next two quarters, because changing a booking path takes a little time to show up.
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On paper, that move is 0.60 percentage points.
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That kind of number gets a shrug in a leadership meeting.
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Really, .60 percentage point lift?
Well woop-de-doo!
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Hang on a minute, in practice, it is close to a third more bookings on the same traffic.

Why the decimal point is your biggest direct booking revenue opportunity.

That 0.60 percentage point can't be ignored.

That is what makes conversion different from every other lever you have.
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More reach costs more money, every month, for as long as you want the reach.
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The guests already on your booking page are bought and paid for.
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Getting more of them to finish is the closest thing hotel marketing has to found money, and it is sitting on your site right now.

It helps to know where you're at and what normal looks like.
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Independent hotels usually convert somewhere between 0.5% and 3.0% of website visitors.
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Industry analysis on Hospitality Net puts unimproved properties at the low end (0.5% to 1.5%), and well-run boutique and luxury independents up around 3.0%.
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That difference from 0.5% to 3.0% means that conversion rates can be influenced, changed for the better.

Why in the world does conversion rate optimization get overlooked?

There are a few reasons conversion gets skipped. The primary reason is ownership.
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The booking engine came bundled with the property management system, so it feels like the vendor's territory.
The website lives with a developer or an agency, so it feels like someone else's login and domain.
Getting found online and increasing reach - well, that's the marketing department.
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There isn't a clear owner, so the report keeps pointing at traffic, and the fastest revenue gains go untouched.

A booking-path fix is not done in an afternoon, but every improvement can lead to quick wins.
Most of it involves tightening the path at multiple points well before the booking engine.
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When you do, the lift tends to show up in bookings within weeks, and the best part is that it keeps producing every month after, on the same traffic.
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If you want to know more about conversion rates and how to improve yours, I put the full breakdown on the blog.
It takes you through the four places on the booking path where guests decide, and what to check at each one.

BONUS: As a Bookings Boost subscriber, you're the first to get a link to a newly built conversion rate calculator.
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What is your revenue growth opportunity from the traffic you already have?
Find out here in about two minutes. Go check it out 👇

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Cheers to getting more from your marketing.
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