Summary: How can we get millennials to book direct?

LaaSie is featured in Travel Tripper’s article, “How can we get Millennials to book direct?”

Millennials travel more than any other demographic. On average, they take 35 days of vacation each year, and they’re also bucking the trend by increasing their annual travel spend as other generations intend to be more conservative with their cash. 

As it turns out, OTAs are the ones benefiting the most from this lucrative market segment: studies show that over half of Millennials book through OTAs. That means hotels are losing out on a big chunk of potential direct booking revenue.

Adding to the challenge, Millennials are also generally averse to traditional loyalty programs, making it harder to retain their business once won.

But it’s important to bear in mind that 31% of them still book through a hotel website. It’s not that Millennials are particularly loyal to OTAs, rather they are most driven by convenience. So how can your hotel website work harder to ensure you capture a piece of this direct business?

In the post, Travel Tripper dives into this topic by outlining the specific ways Millennials research, browse and book their trips. They also offer a series of strategies you can use to implement this knowledge and get ahead of the competition.

One of their points is to make deals easy to see (and compare). They recommend that if a hotel’s rates are in parity with OTAs, to try to sweeten the deal by offering rewards for booking direct. Companies like LaaSie allow hotels to add instant rewards to their booking engine, which can dramatically improve conversion rates and booking revenue.

Read the full article here.