Price parity, a utopia?

We live in a time of so much competition in the hotel sector that every reservation is 'fought' with intermediation, right? There are many channels to control so that there are no disparities and also many variables: markets, nights of stay, devices and even time slot or day of the week in which the reservation is made...

What is clear is that beyond getting the booking, disparities produce a number of negative consequences for your hotel and your brand:

Disparities reduce the amount of direct bookings as others compete against you with better rates for the same product, which let's not forget is yours. Consequently, they produce a lower profitability for the hotel. Disparities can also bring a type of customer that is of no interest to your hotel (who comes 'only' for price and then does not consume other products or services).

Another point, and no less important, is that as they are intermediated clients, it is complicated to work your loyalty program and generate a relationship with them.

Prevention is better than cure

Having a clear and well-defined distribution strategy will make it easier for you to control parity. Our advice:

●Review contracts with new distributors and try to include binding price clauses that set consequences in the event of non-compliance.

●Less is more. Having many open channels does not mean selling more or that they will bring us more customers. You should focus on those channels that offer you profitability and that, for example, offer payment at the hotel, so that you can control the final price.

Don't compete against yourself. In some cases, you may be offering rooms through several channels for the same target audience. It usually coincides with channels whose business model for sales is the generation of disparities so we do not increase sales but lose control of our distribution.

Focus your distribution strategy on direct sales. Offering better conditions in your rates or exclusive guaranteed rates will help the user to end up booking directly. You can offer direct discounts with promocodes, add free pensions, include improvements in the booking conditions...etc.

Can you control the disparities?

Technology is always a time-saving aid, provides reports with valuable data and avoids errors. All revenue needs a goodrate shopper as a working tool. 

If you still do not consider hiring a tool that does it, you can control the disparities manually, with a lot of patience and even having to make reservations with your own card in order to identify the source of these disparities. In any case, you have other tools that you can use such as Metacomparators.

Thanks to the connectivity and reach of metasearch engines, you will be able to detect disparities that your distributors may be carrying out. Keep in mind that there are many factors that will influence the rates shown and you may have to search at different times of the day, with different number of guests, number of nights or even changing the search engine domain to other countries to identify the prices shown in other markets.

Communicate firmly and if they persist, take action. When you have identified the disparity, take screenshots and communicate it to the distribution channel that is responsible for the disparity. If the problem persists, you will only have one weapon left, apply a supplement to that channel or even temporarily close sales to that channel. 

And if you can't control parity, turn the situation around!

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Generate positive disparities towards your direct channel. How?

• Exclusive rates and additional values: always book the most attractive promotions and offers for your direct channel (e.g. Early check in, Late check out, free SPA, etc.).
• Protect your inventory: you should always reserve a portion for your direct channel and even offer exclusive rooms that no other distributor or OTA has.
• Loyalty: use your own program as OTAS do. Our engine not only makes it possible to offer discounts to registered customers, but also allows you to segment them by levels with different advantages or discounts that will help you create that engagement and optimize your profitability (not all advantages must be price reduction).
• Better rates in metasearch engines: thanks to the direct integration we have with the big metasearch engines (Google HA, Tripadvisor, trivago...) you can send different discounts or supplements for your direct channel to the clients that consult your hotel in metasearch engines, this way you can be more competitive vs OTAs in these channels.
• Opaque discounts: OTAs are becoming more and more aggressive with their "opaque" strategies such as discounts for mobile devices, promocodes, discounts for time slots, etc. All these functionalities can also work in your direct channel thanks to our booking engine.
• Payment flexibility. An increasingly important factor for the customer is when and how to pay for their booking. Facilitating this through flexible and exclusive payment policies in your direct channel can be a differentiating point (payment on arrival, semi-flexible rates, interest-free installment payments...) or even alternative payment methods (PayPal, Bizum, etc...) thanks to our ePayments Manager product.
• It offers hyper-personalization:

            - With Hotelverse and our integration with its digital twin, you will be able to offer a value proposition that OTAs cannot replicate.

            - With THN (The Hotels Network) and its Price Match tool, you can offer personalized discounts based on the origin of the user's search to create positive parity for your direct channel and get them to book.

Remember, as the saying goes, 'If you can't beat your enemy, join him.If disparities are a headache for you, define a good distribution strategy and then get ahead of other channels and generate positive disparities in your direct channel.