World Independent Hotels Promotion (WIHP) has just announced a sweet partnership with leading meta comparison site Trivago, one which could end up being a sort of strategic masterpiece. Testing their so called DirectPack ad platform with Trivago, WIHP’s test hotels achieved a 10x ROI with no sweat, according to WIHP’s Marketing experts. The implications of this news may not be readily obvious, we suggest you read on.
The Move to Direct Bookings
With every hotel out there looking for a better booking mousetrap, and the emergence of so called “commission free” booking portals like Global Hotel Exchange, Room Key, Treovi and others, it’s pretty clear the industry is all shook up over converting investment into profit, or in short “maximizing ROI”. According to a release from Paris based WIHP Hotels, the search for proven ROI for a great many hotels owners may be over shortly.
If what Martin Soler, Director of Marketing for WIHP tells us proves out, the days of marketing pros looking stupefied when asked to project ROI may be at an end. For those in the business, you know of what we speak here. PR, marketing, and ad campaigning online can be a tough sell, as one in the business knows proven ROI is not the simplest proof out there to show. At least previously, that is.
According to theWIHP news, the Paris marketing group just completed testing bookings via Trivago for 50 test hotel clients to determine the efficacy of DirectPack and the derived ROI for those hoteliers. For those unaware, ad and marketing channel management is a critical need for any hotel to survive in the online game, and WIHP has been at perfecting this marketing and sales component for some time.
DirectPack, combined with the meta-comparison excellence of Trivago (especially directed at a hotel’s website) offers a unique opportunity even beyond that of the aforementioned “commission free OTAs” – the resultant economy is evidenced in the veritable guaranteed 10X ROI achieved by those test hotels – an ROI based largely on driving bookings to the hotel’s own website. And if that is not the proverbial “Hold Grail”, I am not sure what is.
Utilizing previous experience working Google Hotel Price ads, TripAdvisor, and many others for their hotel clients, World Independent Hotel Promotion (WIHP) has now integrated with Trivago, advertised as the world’s largest hotel search engine. Of course WIHP or any marketing company out there tests channels extensively anyhow, but what WIHP has done here goes far past establishing a potential ROI. Soler sent this comment along as well:
“Because groups of hotels or independent hotels use different booking engines, they often don’t have access to technology platforms that require complex and advanced programming. WIHP’s experience with advertising on such platforms, added to the experience with independent hotels, makes us a unique partner for our hotel clients. Adding a direct booking option to hotel’s websites on Trivago is an excellent tool in any hotel’s toolbox to increase their direct bookings and profits.”
DirectPack, touted by WIHP as “the first complete online advertising solution developed exclusively to increase direct bookings to hotels”, is actually the first true direct bookings conduit I know of connecting hotels with this sort of “guaranteed” across many channels, from Google and Yahoo to TripAdvisor and Trivago, and many more.
Here’s the breakdown of why this is cutting edge news for hotels and guests. People flatly search out and book hotel rooms via a multitude of online portals. Searching hotels with Google, using TripAdvisor, and 100 other methodologies can all lead customers away from any one hotel in any location – or TO them, for the matter. Looking from the hotel’s perspective, it all gets super complicated. The biggest rub being here, “where do I put my ad and marketing money to get the best conversion rate?” Billions are lost in the space, wasted on ineffective ad spend etc. The hotel ends up paying for “clicks” that convert to nothing. Enter WIHP and Trivago.
Hotel La Demeure third from top filtered for center of Paris etc.
Buy Direct from Nike & Others
DirectPack is WIHP’s ad optimization weapon for maximizing conversions, Trivago is the perfect meta-search tool for comparing rates, the end result is any hotel room at the best possible rate – but there’s more. Look at the search result above. WIHP’s hotel La Demeure is situated in the top three results after a natural filtering for the center of Paris, three or four stars, and the hotel website. This is but one example of a test hotel showing up a la natural in the Trivago matrix. Now just imagine this hotel pricing their own site lower than on the OTAs! What price breaks could Nike give athletic show buyers straight out of the warehouse?
WIHP has positioned themselves perfectly in between guests and hoteliers, as has Trivago. The traveler searching Trivago finds the best possible deal, while the hotelier implementing WIHP’s DirectPack (plus Convert and other tools perhaps) ends up with the best overall ROI. The tracking reports, detailing bookings, revenue, cost of each sale and other precision metrics and tools of this new system render an exact ROI for the hotelier. Now that’s a big “win-win” for all concerned, if you follow the hotel booking news. The screenshot below is the final nail in the coffin of high commission bookings, in my view at least.
Now factor in all those hotels out there unprepared for guests to look and book on their website, and there are thousands, trust me on that. WIHP’s convert, the hit of ITB Berlin, is another added value Expedia, Orbitz, Room Key, nobody out there in the OTA world can provide hoteliers, a rocket fast, image centric booking portal to go along with their direct booking multi-channel tool. See what I mean? WIHP – Trivago becomes a sort of superhero middle-ware for hotels.
That's the hotel's website direct via Trivago
Editor’s note: I should note, by way of a disclosure, that I have consulted with WIHP Hotels on several levels, just as I have with Global Hotel Exchange, Treovi, Vinivi, Stay.com, and many other online travel related companies. You don’t have to take my word for any reporting on these and other innovations, but I strongly suggest you investigate WIHP for yourself. WIHP, nor any of the aforementioned, in any way sponsors or supports Argophilia Travel News.
Photo credit: Superhero courtesy and arrangement with © julien tromeur – Fotolia.com