What Makes Travelers Choose Your Hotel?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeapV5Z5i1w&rel=0

Presented by: Natalie Gardner and Sergio Gutierrez 

Key Points From the Webinar

We understand that as a Hotelier, your schedule is busy. During the (38:13 min) presentation, we've highlighted the key moments below. With times listed below, easily fast forward to sections that can help your hotel the most!

1. What is a Metasearch? (3:23)

Metasearch aggregates data content from other search engines. Trivago® is the world's largest metasearch collector for hotel and price comparison data based on different booking sites. Trivago helps users to choose the right hotel based on location, price, reputation, and amenities. Statistics on Trivago

• Compares 900,000+ hotels information and pricing
• 47% of travelers use metasearch when finding a hotel
• Trivago processes 4 million search results per day

2. Who are the Travelers Searching for Hotels on Trivago? (6:19)

Types of users were broken into three categories: Vacation, Business, and Weekend travelers.

• Vacation Travelers - Looking for 1 week stays (searching during weekends)
• Business Travelers - Looking for trips during the week (searching on Mondays)
• Weekend Travelers - Looking for weekend getaways (searching on Thursday/Friday)

It is important to understand who your travelers are and when they're traveling so that you can adjust your social media marketing and retargeting strategies. Furthermore, different customers have different needs. During the presentation, Natalie Gardner mentioned that 50% of trivago users take 4 minutes to search for their hotel! A complete profile is essential to attracting customers in a short period of time.

3. Trivago Hotel Manager (8:07-12:30)

Trivago Hotel Manager is free content solution for Hoteliers and independent properties. Hotel Manager is the platform businesses use to publish or advertise their listing on the web. For more information and video tutorials, check out an earlier blog from National Hospitality here!

4. What Profile Features Lead to Traveler Conversions? (12:40-16:39)

• How often do filters convert travelers to guests?
  • Star category- 72%
  • Rating- 74%
  • Price- 74%
  • Distance-78%
  • Make sure you have all four of these located in your profile!

• How important is it to have a completely filled out profile?
  • Profiles that are completed in full detail receive 70% more clicks.

• How influential is the quality of the main image?
  • Profiles with high definition photos compared to those with standard definition received 96% of the overall clicks.

• How important is it to have 20 photos or more in photo gallery?
  • Profiles with photo galleries greater than 20, received 52% of the clicks.

• How much weight does the description of the hotel have in decision making?
  • Profiles that contained detailed descriptions received 79% of the clicks.

5. Best Practices for Image Quality and Format (16:40-17:09)

• Upload at least 20 high quality images to photo gallery
• Format jpeg or jpg
• Horizontal format
• Size up to 10 MB

6. Trivago's Tips for Writing Concise, Engaging Descriptions (17:40-18:20)

• Use short sentences
• Don't copy a description that already exists on another website
• Avoid automatic translators, ask a native speaker to proofread
• Don't add contact details, URL, prices, emoticons, or capital letters

[caption id="attachment_4505" align="aligncenter" width="420"] Trivago customers will arrive happily knowing they got the best rate![/caption]

7. Enhancing Your Experience with Pro (18:25-21:15)

Trivago offers Hotelier's the option to upgrade their accounts to pro. Subscriptions and payments are customized based on each user. For more information on if going pro is the right choice for your hotel, visit their website here. Example Benefits Include:

• More direct bookings
• Increased promotion with hotel news sharing
• See who is searching for you, and how you can reach them!

8. Reputation: Promoting Your Hotel's Strengths via Quality Testing (22:05-26:14)

Trivago's Quality Test is a solution that allows hotels to be a step ahead of competitors by getting real feedback from real guests. For properties that choose to start a Quality Test campaign, incentives include being ranked higher in search results, a verified badge on the listing, and exclusive information on the properties strengths! Watch as Sergio Gutierrez describes exactly how to start a campaign in the short segment.

9. Hotel Rates (26:18-31:35)

When your guests come to Trivago, they're looking for a great deal. After users have selected their desired features for the hotels they're looking for, 71% end up sorting the list by price! Trivago conducted a simple study by decreasing the booking rate of one room by 5%, and the traffic on the listing increased by an additional 15%. Furthermore, a 25% decrease, brought an additional 59% increase in traffic! Natalie describes in this segment how Trivago's pro addition includes a comprehensive benchmarking tool that allows Hoteliers to see what the competition is doing in order to define an efficient pricing strategy. See the newest addition Trivago is soon launching with Direct Connect, a way for hotels to drive direct booking to their website via Trivago. Sign up here.

10. Q & A with Natalie and Sergio (31:33-38:13)

We hope you enjoyed watching an insightful webinar from Trivago on how their Hotel Manager can help drive bookings, online presence, and reputation for your property. In the last segment, Natalie and Sergio answer the most frequently asked questions. For any additional questions, visit trivago.com. You can also find additional videos and information from Trivago: A Must Have for Hoteliers.