To entice guests, you have to know about them—their demographics, their likes and dislikes, and what they consider a great experience. You can use your online booking engine to collect this data, and if not surprise them, at least delight them. If you don’t have a direct online booking engine, you need one. Not only do direct bookings come without commission fees, they’re crucial for building customer relationships. 

Keep reading to learn how to use your booking engine data to get to know your guests—and get more bookings!

Clicks

How many people click on your booking engine, and when do they do it? The answers to these questions give you valuable information about how effective your website is and which dates are most popular (when you may want to raise prices). Fewer people could be clicking on your booking engine because it’s shoulder season, your value proposition isn’t attractive enough, or that “book now” button is too hard to find. 

Conversions

While website traffic data lets you know how well you attract and maintain interest, conversion data from your booking engine tells you how many of those people actually buy. You need data from all stages of the marketing funnel to let you know if and when people are dropping out. WebRezPro allows you to track customers through the entire booking process so you can identify at what point bookings are abandoned. Potential guests drop out for a variety of reasons, many of which you can do something about. 

If customers are bailing at your booking engine, it might mean the booking process is confusing, visually unappealing, or seems insecure. Choose a modern booking engine that demonstrates robust security measures, simplify each step wherever you can, and ensure your booking engine is optimized for mobile to offer a seamless experience on any device. 

However, the terms of the offer can turn potential guests away as well. Are you priced too high or too low? Do you offer flexible cancellations? 

For some guests, price may be the deciding factor, while for others it isn’t as significant. It pays (literally) to know how price sensitive your guests are. Take a peek at the packages and rooms that are booked most often. Are they the inexpensive ones or the ones with the most extras?

Make sure your online booking channels (including your direct channel) integrate with your property management system. This not only prevents manual, error-prone data duplication, it ensures your availability is always up to date wherever guests book. No more assigning ten rooms to your direct channel and ten to your OTA, then turning away bookings on one channel while you still have rooms on another. 

You can offer an upgrade too if all your standard rooms are booked. WebRezPro’s booking engine can display close matches that don’t fit the guest’s exact parameters but may still be of interest, making it less likely that the guest can’t find an appropriate room.

Revenue

Some of the revenue metrics that enable you to gauge your property’s performance can be applied solely to your direct channel. Start with your average daily revenue, which is the average revenue that your booking engine generates for each room night over a specific period.

You can also calculate your direct occupancy rate, which is similar to your occupancy rate but deals only with rooms booked direct and excludes rooms booked through other channels such as OTAs. Take the number of rooms booked direct and divide it by your total available rooms, then turn it into a percentage by multiplying by 100. 

RevPAR becomes RevDirect for your direct booking channel. RevDirect is revenue per available room but only takes into account revenue from stays booked directly. RevPAR and RevDirect include unsold rooms. 

Note: If you’re a hotel with a large amount of negotiated rate business, i.e., business from corporate clients and tour operators, you may want to run your metrics without those rooms included as well, then compare the results. As those rooms aren’t sold through your online direct channel, they skew your numbers. 

Finally, measure how much of your total revenue comes from direct online bookings compared to each other channel. 

Disparities

You need to know how often and by how much OTAs undercut your rates. These metrics are known as the disparities amount and the disparities frequency. The disparities amount is the percentage difference between their rate and yours, while the disparities frequency is the percentage of time that this happens. You want these metrics to be as low as possible. If you don’t offer the cheapest price, guests book elsewhere. 

The Basics 

Even basic reservation details matter, such as dates, number of adults and children, and the rate booked. While this data may seem mundane, it provides clues about each guest’s needs and expectations. For instance, if the guests checking in are “Mr. and Mrs. Walker,” you may be dealing with a couple on a getaway whereas if children are booked as well you know that it’s a family stay. Both of these circumstances present a different set of needs. The rate booked can tell you the purpose of a guest’s stay; whether it’s a romance package or a corporate event.

Stay dates are useful too, on both an individual and aggregate level. If the guest is checking in on a holiday or long weekend, you can try to upsell them the appropriate packages. Dates also let you know the length of stay and what days, weeks, and seasons are most popular. 

Be thoughtful about what you can get from a piece of data. Contact information is useful for more than just where to send the confirmation email. It can tell you what region the guest comes from (address) and if they’re a business or leisure traveler (say if they book with a corporate email). 

Bells and Whistles

While basic reservation data can tell you a surprising amount, it does not reveal everything. Give guests the chance to personalize their stay with upsells when making a reservation. WebRezPro’s booking engine enables you to sell add-ons like spa services, meals, tours, and more. Not only do these extras enhance the guest’s stay experience, they provide an opportunity to get to know a little more about them through the add-ons they choose. The only caveat here is that you don’t want to make your booking process too complex by offering too many options as it could impact your conversion rate (see above). 

If you sell packages via your booking engine (and you should), take note of the lead times people need to book. This should show you the best time to offer it. Is that Twelve Days of Christmas package sold out by September? Or do you still have availability in November?

Putting It Together

Reservation data is great for personalizing each guest’s experience, but it can do so much more. Use the reporting functions in your booking engine to get the bigger picture, identify patterns, and segment guests at your property. 

Booking engine data can tell you who your audience is and what they want not only as individuals but as a whole. It lets you know the most popular rates and packages, which points to what your guests want and your own unique selling proposition. If your Mother’s Day spa package sold particularly well, you may want to try others like it throughout the year, and you can also infer that women and families frequent your hotel. If it didn’t do well, that also tells you important strategic information. 

Pay special attention to booking and stay dates as they reveal the ebb and flow of demand (see above). While busy and quiet periods may be obvious, others can still surprise you. A beach hotel that’s so popular with families during the summer may remain occupied through October with couples’ getaways instead.

Your direct booking engine is a mine of useful data to improve your marketing strategy, guest experience, and revenue—so grab a shovel and start digging!