Ultimate Guide to OTAs for Indian Hotels

These sites get vast volumes of traffic — far more than typical hotel websites — making them a critical marketing channel for hotels. A well-rated listing on a popular OTA site like Booking.com can generate huge numbers of bookings and large amounts of revenue over time.

OTAs can vary by region. For optimal success, Indian hotels need to approach OTAs in a certain way. In this article, we’ll look at why OTAs are so important for Indian hotels and how to make the most of them.

What is OTA management?

OTA management is the process of listing your hotel on the right OTAs and managing your presence across these channels for maximum success.

It’s about ensuring you have a strong presence on all the right websites so you can connect with guests and start to gather more bookings. Building a reputation on these sites can take time, and requires the right strategy and the proper software tools.

The importance of OTAs for Indian hotels

The Indian travel market is in an incredibly exciting place right now. 

In 2021 the entire Indian travel industry was valued at $19.1 (US dollars) and is predicted to reach $40.4 billion in 2025. A key factor in this growth will be the internet — online penetration is expected to reach 58% in 2025. Many tourists are now booking exclusively online and on their mobile devices.

Indian hotels that can tap into this exploding online market stand to gain a huge amount. But it requires the right approach.

A major part of the Indian travel boom is a significant increase in domestic travel. As the Indian economy grows, more and more people enter the middle class and find themselves with disposable income to explore the country and splash out on travel and tourism. 

This is especially relevant for mid-scale hotels. The luxury market has always had customers in India, but the fast-growing middle class means that mid-range accommodation is in more demand than ever before.

Indian hotels that can cater, at least in part, to middle-class Indian travelers can make a lot of money here. This means building and maintaining a presence on OTAs that specifically target the Indian tourism market.

Finding the right pool of OTAs

What are the OTAs that Indian hotels should focus on?

The answer to this question will be different for every hotel, but sites like MakeMyTrip, Yatra, and EaseMyTrip are great places to start. These are major platforms that target the Indian market and have lots of traffic.

Beyond that, it’s a good idea to start carrying out your own research. Get clear on the customers you’re targeting and information like their ages, budgets, and preferences. Then find OTAs that focus on those demographics. For example, some OTAs specialize in luxury properties while others cater to outdoor holidays and so on.

It’s also important to consider the amount of commission that OTAs charge and whether this is reasonable for you, along with the reputation and track record of each OTA.

Use a Channel Manager for best results

So how do you cultivate a strong presence across the right OTA sites?

One of the most valuable tools available to hotels here is a Channel Manager, designed to help you navigate and build a presence across multiple online channels, including OTAs.

Here are some of the main advantages of using a Channel Manager as part of your OTA strategy:

• Information like room availability, pricing, facilities, booking conditions, and more is all standardized and synchronized across all your booking channels. This means you can list your property on several OTAs and ensure all the information is always up-to-date and accurate, without the need to manually update each listing. This saves lots of time and avoids disappointing or confusing customers.
• Automatically manages bookings. A Channel Manager keeps track of all your bookings across all your OTAs. Any changes or cancellations are immediately noted, and your inventory is updated accordingly. This way, it’s much easier to keep track of your bookings in real time and gain crucial business insights.
• Reduces the risk of overbookings. A Channel Manager allows you to manage your inventory and reservations in one central place, which avoids overbooking rooms. Since overbooking can create major headaches for hotels — leaving guests angry and disappointed, requiring last-minute compensation payouts, and damaging reputation — this is a very useful feature.

Good Channel Managers work in both international and domestic markets. For Indian hotels, a Channel Manager gives you the opportunity to build a presence across all the most important Indian OTAs, connecting with domestic tourists and driving more bookings as the Indian travel market continues to grow.

Hotel-Spider’s solution

At Hotel-Spider, our Channel Manager is built to help hotels connect with more customers and drive more bookings across a range of OTAs.

We offer all the benefits listed in this post, by combining a legacy of Swiss hospitality with a platform aimed at the Indian market.

Request a demo with us to learn more and get started.