The two Cs that are often referred to in e-commerce are content and conversion, we may put them together and say: Good content that leads to conversion is king.

For hotels, the easier part of the task of customer acquisition is getting eyeballs to your website. Major brands like Hilton and Marriott have driven large gains in website traffic and sign-ups to their loyalty programmes in recent years thanks to major advertising campaigns. Of course, getting them there is only half the work.

Converting lookers into bookers is where the rubber hits the road. If properties can’t convert visits to their booking channels into heads in beads — after paying significant marketing costs or brand and franchise fees — the unit economics will be very unfavourable very fast. This is where your focus should be.

Industry data shows that the bulk of lookers do not convert to bookers. According to our friends at 80 DAYS, conversion rates for hotel websites average between 1.7% and 2%. This means even in the best-case scenarios, where a hotel might be seeing a 5% conversion rate, 95% of visitors are still abandoning its website without booking a room.

Another report – the Adobe Digital Index – reflects similar statistics. For travel products, the conversion rate in Asia Pacific on desktop is 2.7%, and on mobile devices, it is 0.9%.

In Asia, e-commerce is still very much on the uptake. Interestingly, mobile commerce is showing keen promise. Last year, for China’s Singles Day — when shoppers spent more than $33 billion in 24 hours — 70% of purchases were made on mobile devices, showing that mobile shopping is fast becoming the preferred choice online for many Asian markets.

Much research has been done on why shoppers abandon carts and why visitors just look and don’t book. As such, there is definitely enough data and analytics out there to help us get better conversion rates.

The hotel industry’s low conversion rates can be contributed to the following:

1. Risk/Investment. Booking a hotel stay, especially for a longer period of time, is not often a spur-of-the-moment type of decision. Many guests shop extensively before booking.
2. Choice and Information Overload. If hotels want to win the booking war, it’s critical to know how to differentiate from the competition. When there are more than 1,000 hotels in a city like London, you have to have a compelling overall proposition that’s better than those 1,000 competitors’. That needs to come through clearly on your website.
3. Confusing Offers. How you position your offers can have a big impact on conversion rates. Hotel guests in most of the West looking to book a stay on 14 February are more likely to want a romance-themed package, in order to celebrate Valentine’s Day. However, hoteliers that present standard offers on their website at times when guests are looking for special packages are going to see low conversions. Also, many markets across Asia have their own special days to account for with the right promotions and packages, like the Valentine’s-adjacent holidays of White Day on 14 March or Black Day on 14 April in South Korea.
4. Poor Platforms. A lot of work goes into building a hotel’s website. But once it’s live, it must evolve in order for conversions to go up. Sites should evolve as guest behaviors evolve. You must constantly improve usability and continue tweaking. This is a job that is never finished.
5. Ancillary Services. Spas, golf courses, and restaurants can have a massive impact on conversions. Visitor may be visiting a site to learn more about a hotel’s highly rated restaurant and thus lowering conversions.

The good news in all this is, if only 2% of visitors are actually booking, it means there is a huge opportunity out there for you to convert the other 98% of lookers to bookers.

What can hoteliers do to move this along? Here are some ideas:

1. Have a clear and obvious call to action.
2. Delve into your data by evaluating the booking funnel. Determine when and where guests are dropping off, and experiment with improvements.
3. Make your offers clear and simple. Avoid complicated terms and conditions.
4. Offer relevant content. This means good imagery and good copy.
5. Make sure to maintain rate parity across all your distribution channels (or, ideally, be less expensive on your own website to encourage direct traffic).

While conversion rates for mobile devices in Asia for travel products is now sitting at 0.9%, you can surely expect that to rise significantly. That also means that in considering how to optimize your websites for bookings, you would do well to put a mobile strategy front and centre of those plans.

Patrick Bosworth is CEO & Co-Founder, Duetto / www.duettocloud.com