Tuesday 21 July 2009

Merchandising Your Online Rooms

The old adage borrowed from another industry of, “Retail is in the Detail” should be applied to how you promote your Rooms online. Customers who want to purchase online have the same needs and wants as those that come through your front door.

You wouldn’t ignore a customer who was hanging around the reception desk waiting for some information on a room rate before booking, and neither should your website.

Among the key factors that concern customer’s booking rooms online are,
  • What does the room look like?
  • What’s included in the rate?
  • Is the rate good value for money?
  • Can I picture myself staying in this room, at this hotel?
If you are on an accommodation website and these questions cannot be answered then you are much less likely to book online. In some cases you may grudgingly call or email the property, if you really really want to stay, but it’s just as easy to go back to your search engine and find another hotel website which can answer your questions.

It is these principles that has driven the development of Bookassist's online reservations booking engine.

Bookassist Makes it Easy to Promote your Rooms
Every Room Package loaded onto a Bookassist Booking Engine benefits from clearly displayed rates, high resolution room images and lot’s of descriptive text, together with an accurate reflection of any applied discounts.

You can see the from the example image that the customer is drawn towards the discount information presented in brighter colours, thus illustrating the value for money.
They can also see an image of room itself, which will expand when you mouse over it. And underneath the rate information, (which helpfully spans 7 days) there is significant text descriptions that is persuasive and alluring.

In addition to these key features, the Booking Engine also enables you to group different packages together, as you can see in this example which shows the Superior Rooms options.

What to do next
To find out how the Bookassist Booking Engine can help you to promote your Rooms more effectively and increase your online sales, contact the Bookassist Scotland office on +44 (0)1292-521-404 or email them at Scotland@bookassist.com

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