Taking your health and safety to all new levels will greatly impact your bookings.
At Booking.com they have found that the use of the words “clean” and “hygiene” have increased by over 60% since the Pandemic started. Bookings are no longer driven by rate but by health and safety protocols. For the foreseeable future, the majority of hotels will be in low demand.
The importance of how to set your rate was once a priority for capturing limited demand. However, in these unusual times, hotels need to re-focus their message on safety, flexibility, and empathy, with rate coming secondary.
Expedia Group is allowing accommodation partners to highlight their health and safety protocols as part of its response to travel in a world battling COVID-19.
Booking.com are allowing guests to rate their experience in terms of health and safety, see below;
Hotels have traditionally emphasised the human touch as an integral part of their offer, however with the Pandemic the human touch and number of human touch points has ironically resulted in bad reviews and lost bookings.
What do we suggest?
Stop focusing on rate and start focusing on what your guests are most concerned about – their health and safety! Remove your human touch points where you can, and your guests will thank you. Offer a more efficient front desk with less human touch points. If you offer a contactless check-in then you can be rated highly for your check-in experience on Booking.com (see below);
To get more positive searches on the OTAs update your profiles to indicate what actions you have taken to ensure your guests safety. For example, on Booking.com you can indicate what you have done in the ‘Facilities & services’ section.
