How can small independent hotels, with limited resources, survive in the world of hospitality where the big are getting bigger and the small are being eaten up? 'Technology is the answer,' says Jack Tan of IdeaWeaver Consulting, who shared 10 tips at the recent WIT Indie in Penang on how independents need to get smarter with technology.
1: Have a website, make sure it’s mobile responsive
“If the website is not mobile responsive no one can read it; therefore no one will book on the hotel’s site. It’s cheap and easy to fix this problem. And it helps with your Google search and ranking too,” says Tan.
Keeping the contents up to date, especially pictures, are important too.
2: Promotions and rate parity
“Get a channel manager that works. Reliability is better than how many OTAs it is linked to,” says Tan.
“Some say they have their own channel managers. Be careful as some are white labelled, meaning they use someone else’s technology and just brand it as their own.”
As an example, he illustrates in the above photo how many hotels don’t manage their rate parity properly and “they complain OTA is getting all the bookings.”
Read the full article here.
