Online Travel Agencies (OTAS) can be a goldmine for hotels, allowing you to tap into a huge market of potential guests and drive more bookings than ever before.
As the travel market shifts online more and more, it’s essential to master the use of digital channels like OTAs. But it’s not always simple. One big question for hotels is whether to focus more on global OTAs or local OTAs.
In this article, we’ll look at the pros and cons and help you decide where to focus your energy.
Global vs local OTAs
Listing your hotel on OTAs allows you to get in front of huge volumes of traffic — far more than the vast majority of hotel websites will ever see.
If you make the right moves, it’s possible to drive a ton of bookings and grow your hotel significantly. But which OTAs should you focus on?
Why focus on global OTAs (pros and cons)
Here are some of the pros of working with global OTAs:
- More reach. Global OTAs target the international travel market, which means potential guests from all over the world can see your listings and make bookings. This way you can access a truly enormous pool of customers.
- Highly sophisticated platforms. Due to their massive size and budgets, global OTAs likeBooking.com tend to be extremely advanced, with cutting-edge features, excellent customer support, and user-friendly interfaces.
- Tap into more affluent demographics. By targeting customers from around the world, not just locally, you can advertise your hotel to more affluent travelers with higher budgets, allowing you to raise your rates and add more services.
On the downside, global OTAs come with a lot of competition. You’re competing with millions of other properties, so it’s harder to stand out. Your listings need to be extremely polished, you’ll need lots of good reviews, and your strategy has to be on point to succeed here.
Why focus on local OTAs (pros and cons)
Here are some reasons to consider local OTAs:
- Domestic tourism is growing in many regions. India is a prime example — domestic tourism has been rising significantly in the last few years, giving rise to an entire market of middle-class travelers. Many of these potential guests will use local OTAs to find accommodation.
- Local OTAs are becoming advanced. In India, platforms likeYatra andMakeMyTrip are now sophisticated tools packed with high-end features.
- A smaller pool of competition. Since local OTAs have fewer users than their global counterparts, it can be easier to stand out and attract guests.
On the other hand, local OTAs have less traffic than global OTAs. And domestic tourists often have lower budgets than international ones, making it harder for you to charge higher rates.
The value of a balanced approach
Ultimately, success with OTAs depends on a balanced approach. If you can build a strong presence on both global and local OTAs, you’ll stand the best chance of growing your hotel and attracting many new customers.
Work with Hotel-Spider
Hotel-Spider’s suite of tools is designed to help hotels succeed across a variety of online channels.
For example, our Channel Manager allows you to build a presence across multiple OTAs — both local and global — keeping all key information updated and synced across channels and reducing the risk of errors and overbookings.
Book a demo with us to find out more.
