You will have noticed over the past 6 months or so we have been setting promotions up in the OTA extranets rather than run them as rate plans through Siteminder.
The OTAs, particularly Booking.com and Expedia work on an algorithm to assess your page ranking, so in other words whether you appear on page 1 or page 10 of searches being done by prospective guests. In a perfect world you want to be ranked as high as possible and where possible on page 1 and somewhere near the top of the page.
If we run your promotions directly from Siteminder the OTAs only recognise it as a rate plan, not as a special or promotion. Therefore, if we set the promotion up on the OTA extranet it is recognised as something out of the ordinary. It will receive tagging and extra visibility and because we are participating in OTA specific events, your property page ranking will improve.
We can also track how well these promotions perform, but it is important to remember that sometimes participating in these promotions is about visibility and strategy, not necessarily about selling the rooms at discounted rates.
Here is an example of a promotion/special set up on Expedia’s extranet – the original price is crossed out. If the property had just set this up in Siteminder as a rate plan it would show the rate as being $445 but with no fancy colours or crossed out original cost and it wouldn’t attract the buyer in quite the same way.
The property below has no promotions set up n Expedia and as you can see their price just shows as normal – no tagging or fancy colours.
Contact Koncept Konnect for more information and to find out how we can help you.