4 Actionable Steps to Capture Existing STR Demand

Booking.com is seeing early signs that people are starting to book travel again. To help you attract these guests, their teams have created a Recovery Toolkit for accommodation partners. It’s full of advice and insights to support you and your property as we begin to emerge from this difficult period. They have committed to continue to update your Recovery Toolkit as they add more resources to support your business, which can be found here on their Partner Hub.  

To go along with this toolkit, we’d like to highlight a few of the key actions you can take to ensure you’re set-up to capture any existing demand on the market.

1. Offering flexibility to travelers in these uncertain times can allow them to quickly adapt their travel plans. 73% of travelers who booked in April 2020 said free cancellation was the main reason they chose the property they did. We’re advising properties to set-up fully flexible rates with the possibility to cancel up to 24 hours before check-in. Properties who have converted to offering the Flexible 1-Day policy will see a visibility boost in search results. Properties that have participated have increased their visibility by up to 23%.
   
   Action Item: Increase your flexibility by converting to Flexible – Day Policy
   
   
2. Optimize your keywords. Since the beginning of the Coronavirus pandemic, Booking.com has seen a dramatic uptick in the use of specific words used by guests when they ask questions about a property. For example, the use of the words “clean” and “hygiene” have both increased by over 60%. To help properties get the word out to guests, you can now update your COVID-19 Standard Phrases along with sharing the Health and Safety Guidelines at your property. 
   
   Action Item: Update your Coronavirus precautionary measures in the extranet.
   
   Action Item: Update your Health and Safety Guidelines in the Facilities & Services page in the extranet 
   
   
3. Offer an exclusive mobile rate to capture an emerging market. Booking.com shared that in 2018, mobile bookings exceeded those made on desktops for the first time ever, meaning over 50% of all reservations were made on a mobile device. Now more than ever it is an important time to capture this demand, and a great way to do that is by offering a mobile rate. Once a partner sets up a mobile rate, a special badge will appear next to their property in the search results and on their property page. In addition to the greater visibility, properties offering a mobile rate are shown to get 26% more bookings from mobile traffic. In the current context Booking.com is recommending a 15% discount to be offered.
   
   Action Item: Set-up a mobile rate in your extranet 
   
   
4. Participate in Booking.com’s Preferred and Genius programs. Two other important ways to increase your visibility in search results, capture more demand, and gain access to Booking.com’s highest value customers are through participating in the Preferred Program and Genius.  
   
   The Preferred Program is only available to the top one third of properties. By opting in, your properties visibility will enjoy greater visibility in the search results and receive a special thumbs-up icon to indicate their preferred status. These factors can contribute to up to 65% more page views and 40% more bookings for preferred partners.
   
   Action Item: Check your eligibility to see if you can join the Preferred Program.
   
   Genius is the perfect program to boost properties visibility and gain access to a pool high-value guests. These guests travel more, stay for longer, and spend more per night than the average customer. Properties that join the Genius Partner program will receive priority visibility in the ranking as well as Genius tagging and filters across all platforms of Booking.com. On average, accommodation partners who join the program increase their bookings by 18% and their revenue by 17%, after subtracting the cost of the discount
   
   Action Item: Check your eligibility to see if you can join the Genius program.

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Lexicon clients: You can simply call your Revenue Strategist for help with any of these items. We're here and happy to help!