Price Everywhere: WebHotelier’s new service is here to increase your hotel’s official booking engine sales

WebHotelier, in collaboration with Google Hotel Ads, Trivagο, TripAdvisor, Skyscanner, and local distribution channels, presents its new service for the increase of bookings at the hotels’ websites, enhancing the occupancy levels as well as the profit margins for its collaborating hotels

Having full integration with the most popular travel websites, like Google, Trivago, Skyscanner, and TripAdvisor, as well as with influential local platforms, WebHotelier introduces its new service Price Everywhere, which aims to increase the number of bookings at the hotels’ websites. With Price Everywhere, hoteliers are able to select the travel search websites that are mostly interested in and provide through them their hotel’s official prices from their own booking engines, allowing the travellers to book directly with their hotels.

Which are the benefits:

1. Hotels can distribute their official booking engine prices to a broader audience that are in the process of finalizing their booking, thus significantly increasing their sales.
2. The bookings are completed at the hotels’ official booking engines with the travellers’ full details and data, which gives the opportunity to the properties for better customer service and loyalty building.
3. Hotels increase their revenue, since the commissions from these channels are significantly lower compared to the popular OTAs. Moreover, hoteliers have more possibilities for upselling, since they now have the full control of each reservation.
4. There is a notably lower Cancellation Rate, as the travellers will not easily find a lower price than the official price offered through the hotel's own booking engine.

Activate Price Everywhere now!

Price Everywhere is available to all WebHotelier collaborating hotels. Its activation is very simple, and can be completed by sending an email to sales@webhotelier.net or filling in the contact form at the end of this article:

1. Select the channels to which you would like to provide your hotel booking engine’s official prices
2. Send an e-mail to sales@webhotelier.net or fill in the contact form at the end of this article, informing WebHotelier that you are interested in activating Price Everywhere
3. After signing the relevant contract, WebHotelier will activate the service without any additional cost, and your hotel hotel will begin receiving more sales at its official booking engine, through the selected channels.

For more information, please contact WebHotelier experts at sales@webhotelier.net

What are the differences between Price Everywhere and OTAs?

▸ More Sales – Lower Commissions

Price Everywhere’s travel websites belong to the broader category of Meta Search Websites. These platforms are in fact useful tools that allow travelers to choose a hotel more easily, since they provide vital information that affects their final booking decision. The popular OTAs, on the other hand, are major hotel search websites, that their main goal is to sell the hotels themselves, through a rather simple procedure with increased security.

However, since popular hotel booking engines, like WebHotelier, are now equally secure and trustworthy, more and more travelers tend to complete their bookings through them, thus decreasing the power of OTAs. At the same time, Meta Search Websites, like Trivago, TripAdvisor, Skyscanner and Google’s Meta services (via Google Search Engine and Google Maps), preserve and increase they dynamics, since, in addition to their main functions (i.e. price comparison, reviews etc), they promote bookings at the hotels’ official booking engines, and manage to increasingly win the travelers’ trust.

As Meta Search Websites provide the possibility for direct bookings through the hotels’ official booking engines, an even larger number of online reservations is expected to shift towards these specific channels. This will evidently change the market standards and bring the travelers to a closer communication with the hotels.

By activating WebHotelier’s Price Everywhere service, hotels are able to select the Meta Search Websites that are mostly interested in and provide through them their official booking engine prices, significantly increasing their sales.

Which are the Meta Search channels of WebHotelier’s Price Everywhere service?

In the next sections, you will find a detailed description of all the Meta Search websites that are included in the special service of Price Everywhere by WebHotelier. Through these channels, you are able to easily enable the distribution of your hotel booking engine’s official prices and reach dynamic travel audiences.

In addition to the popular travel platforms, like Trivago and Skyscanner that focus on price comparison, and TripAdvisor that mainly concentrates on presenting hotel reviews, Google’s new Meta Search functionality presents a huge dynamic, and is expected to absorb an important market share. Finally, smaller-scale local platforms also seem to influence a noteworthy number of sales, providing a larger variety of choices to the hoteliers.

Google Hotel Ads: Google’s new meta search network

Even if its name might cause confusion, “Google Hotel Ads” is not another way for hotel advertising, but a new channel for distributing the hotels’ official booking engine prices, through Google Search results and Google Maps. Even though it is a rather new feature, Google Hotel Ads seem to win more ground on a daily basis, since their collaborating hotels achieve an important number of new bookings. More specifically, over the first half of 2019, Google’s Meta network brought more than 8.700 confirmed bookings to WebHotelier properties, with a cancellation rate less than 10%.

Trivago: The most powerful Price Comparison Website

Trivago is the most important Price Comparison Website globally, with millions of monthly travelers who use the platform to compare prices for the hotels they like. Over the past few years, Trivago has made a clear turn towards the promotion of the hotels’ official booking engines, either through PPC methods or οn-commission models. Its latest upgrade, “Trivago Express Booking”, confirms this turn and presents notable results, as the travelers are no longer obliged to leave Trivago’s environment in order to complete their reservation in each hotel’s official booking engine. This facilitates the whole procedure and significantly enhances the sales of the collaborating properties.

TripAdvisor: The top Hotel Review Website

TripAdvisor is undoubtedly one of the most important Travel Planning online tools, since travelers trust the platform for receiving valuable information that will lead to their final booking decision. Even though travelers have linked TripAdvisor mainly with hotel reviewing (in contrast with Trivago that focuses on price comparison), its recent update that presents the hotels’ official prices, has increased the platform’s dynamics in the market of hotel reservations. Through TripAdvisor, hoteliers are able to present their competitive prices at a rather early stage of the travelers’ market research.

Skyscanner: A complete approach in travel searches

Skyscanner stands out among the common price comparison websites, as it offers a complete solution to travelers regarding their next trips’ planning, as it allows them, in addition to hotels, to search for flights and car rentals. Through the platform, that presents an important increase over the last period, WebHotelier’s collaborating properties are now able to distribute their official booking engine prices to a multi-level channel, where travelers are able to organize all the stages of their trips.

Local travel websites, like ‘Greece and the Islands’, ‘Matt Barretts’ Guide’, and 'Holiday.gr' for Greek Hotels

The Meta search functionality has been implemented in local character websites, which affect a smaller — yet not at all insignificant — number of bookings. In such websites, like Greece and the Islands (for Israeli travelers coming to Greece), Matt Barretts’ Guide, and Holiday.gr, hoteliers are now able to provide their official booking engine prices, gaining additional sales from more specialized audiences.

F.A.Q. about WebHotelier’s Price Everywhere

▸ What is the cost for activating Price Everywhere?

Price Everywhere activation is completely free. All you need to do is to contact WebHotelier’s customer support via an e-mail to sales@webhotelier.net or through the contact form at the end of this article.

▸ Do I have to provide prices to all the Meta Search channels of Price Everywhere or am I able to choose the ones I prefer?

Hoteliers can activate the channels they prefer, and add new channels at any time, if they desire so.

▸ What is the commission I have to pay to each channel and what is WebHotelier’s charge?

Each channel has its own pricing policy, charging different commission rates. WebHotelier’s charges follow the terms that are described in the contract with each hotel, regarding all the sales through its booking engine. WebHotelier’s customer support can inform you about the different commission rates of each channel.

▸ Can I cut off availability to a channel for a specific period of time?

Each connected channel receives live availability through your official booking engine. Therefore, the Price Everywhere service can not be treated in a “Channel Manager” way, like you can do with OTAs, where you can disable and enable availabilities any time you wish. On the other hand, with Price Everywhere, you can completely remove a channel from your selected ones and add it again in the future.

▸ Can I run “Price Everywhere” only for a specific period within a year?

Yes, however this is considered to be a bad practice, as it can affect your performance in the various channels, which take into consideration your ‘selective’ provision of prices.

▸ Since I will be charged with a commission, why not just stay with the classic OTAs?

On one hand, the commissions from the Price Everywhere channels are significantly lower, while on the other hand, the travelers are able to book directly with your hotel, thus providing their full details and data to you. Evidently, this will allow you to have better chances for up-selling, as well as improved customer service and loyalty building. Moreover, these channels report a lower cancellation rate. Finally, Price Everywhere's Meta Search channels possess an important market share, which hotels are now able to claim.

Content developed by Hotelier Academy