Following the premiere’s great success in 2016, BookDirect MeetUp, the only Hungarian event that helps hotels increase their direct bookings was full house again.
Almost 200 participants in Tiszakécske and Zamárdi were intrigued to get a comprehensive picture of why and how to drive more bookings to their direct channels with talks by experts of kozossegi-media.com, Mito, Cegos, simenyi.hu and RESnWEB. In addition, representatives from Budapest Marriott Hotel*****, Aquaticum Debrecen Termál & Wellness Hotel**** and Velence Resort & Spa****superior offered remarkable insights and shared their valuable experience in the field.
Here’s a snapshot of what happened:
Shocking statistics helped us understand how essential it is to know online travellers and their booking habits to grow the number of OTA-commission free reservations, and how to harness the mass-moving power of social media smartly. Excellent and poor examples were provided on visual representations showing what to keep in mind when ordering and managing the photo shoot of our hotel; and later we looked through the practical steps of a hotel website’s rebirth, which also was an eye-opener to reconsider direct strategies.
Not only online but also offline tricks and tips were presented on how to make bookers finally understand (and take it as a commonplace) that direct deals are the best deals and on how to train hotel staff to be able to effectively communicate this idea to guests. Participant also discovered that there are other tools besides Google Analytics to measure conversion and what are the typical mistakes that hinder us to know our advertisements’ real cost and effect. The audience was listening in awe to hotel data-collection and analyzing solutions that provide correct and useful results and it was also proved that the loyalty programme of a huge hotel chain can be a useful inspiration and contain practices that can be put into action even in smaller, independent hotels. And the icing on the cake was the talk on the thorny issue of handling guest reviews which showed that even negative opinions can be beneficial if we know the ropes.
BookDirect MeetUp was full of technical innovation and brilliant solutions, participants’ feedbacks reflect its success as well: every single one of them would recommend it to their colleagues.
Missed out BDMU 2018 and want to get the highlights and the know-how? Follow our blog and read the soon-coming summary of the talks with the most useful information and tricks.
Want to join the inspiring hospitality professionals next time? Stay informed on future events by giving your email address at www.bookdirect.hu
