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Final examExercice 1Valerie Chouquet

+OTAs

What is a OTA? It is an online travel agency (OTA) specializes in offering

planning sources and booking capabilities.

It can be used to sell rooms, but also as an advertisement to reach customers you wouldn’t be able to reach directly.

May hotels need OTA to be able to reach the customer but it has a cost because they have to pay a fee. Moreover, hoteliers don’t own this third channel.

There are different types of OTA, some are the biggest as Expedia, booking.com but there is some smaller OTA more for a special niche market and they can be less expensive for hoteliers.

OTA can also be used as an advertising channel, more than a distribution channel.

+LAST MOMENT BOOKING APPS

New apps have appeared and they offer the opportunity for the clients to book rooms at the very last minute.

Indeed, from 12am, the customer can see different rooms around him by a geolocalisation system and the prices going down. Discounts grow in real time depending on the number of people who are looking at the same page as you.

The specificity is that the client can book only through the app, there is no website. And, there is no refund.

Example: The very last room.com

+SEO

Search engine optimization is a set of strategies and techniques used to increase the amount of visitors to a website or webpage by obtaining a high-ranking placement in the search results page of a search engine (Google, Bing, Yahoo…).

SEO improves the chances that the site will be found by the search engine. The higher a website naturally ranks in organic results of a search, the higher is the percentage of chance that customers will have a look at your webpage.

Hoteliers need to find the right key words because the big players are spending a lot of money in key words so the idea is to go around the bush and find another way to have good ranking.

So hoteliers have to don’t look in the more popular search term. A smaller hotel for instance has to find terms that are relevant but not in a crowded place and then this page with specific key words will link to other pages .

+INTERACTIVE CAMPAIGNS

It uses online or offline interactive media to communicate with consumers and to promote products, brands, and services. This is most commonly performed through the Internet and more specifically a dedicated website; often through the use of an ad server that can deliver a variety of interactive advertising units.

Example: Mac Donald’s with his billboard and Pick n Play games, both are game playing on a gigantic interactive board in the street.

In the games, either you register on line and you can play against another player a ping pong game and the winner will receive his gift that he will have to pick at a specific McDonalds

Either, on the other game, no need to register online, many items are rolling on the board and when you find the asked item you just have to take a picture with your smartphone and show it at a specific Mc Donalds.

+DIRECT BOOKING

Direct booking means that you don’t need any third party to receive booking from your customer.

It can be either online through the hotel website or offline. Strategies to increase direct booking: - Create your own mobile booking engine : simple and convenient - Increase your visibility by getting more referencement on google and by

being present on different platforms like Pinterest, facebook, twitter. With Facebook for instance, it is possible to book directly and you can push the customer to do with incentives. Remember that you own your facebook account and that you don’t pay fees.

You can create contests so the pages of the hotels will be liked and shared the most as possible. 

Encourage guests to post comments and to visit your website Be like a blogger of the neighbourhood and be present with articles on your

website good website direct call skype Be referenced on Google Places, this is free! Invite the guest to come to your only home platform when they check out,

offering them to pay a lower rate, best deals. Getting them back or to refer you is free

+ROOMKEY.COM

This website is a direct booking website.

Indeed, many hotels have decided to group themselves and they are offering their rooms to the customers in direct. They don’t have to pay fee as for a OTA.

They guarantee the best room rate to the clients who finally know that they are not paying extra fees neither.

Customers can still earn their loyalty points and rewards.

So this is at the benefice of the customers and the hotels.

offer travelers direct access to a broad network of hotels around the globe, provide accurate and comprehensive information, make it easy for travelers to discover what’s right for them.

Here are the hotels part of this website: