[INFOGRAPHIC] Upselling and Cross-selling in the Hotel Business

by Joan Evelyn Lee October 26, 2017 Comments Revenue Strategy

Do you know the difference between upselling and cross-selling when it comes to hotel bookings? Our latest infographic explains the key difference and how that should influence your hotel marketing strategy to maximize revenue.

Click to download a PDF or read our original article on upselling and cross-selling in hotels. 

Upselling and Cross-Selling in the Hotel Business UPSELLING and CROSS-SELLING are both great ways to boost incremental revenue on bookings. UPSELLING is getting the customer to spend more on an existing purchase. CROSS SELLING involves selling ancillary products or services, like a massage treatment or a city tour, on top of the original purchase. The Art of UPSELLING The Art of CROSS-SELLING Asking customers to spend more on an existing booking requires giving them a compelling reason to do so. In the hotel industry, successful cross-selling is about getting the timing of the sale right. add Do not push cross-sells during booking Only 3% of guests purchase add-ons while booking rooms. Don’t overwhelm them with too much choice during this period. Use incremental pricing When selling room upgrades, use language such as “only $54 more” to enhance the attractiveness of the oer. Promote scarcity Letting guests know when there are a limited number of rooms can create a sense of urgency. Use a well-timed pre-arrival email to encourage cross-sells Confirmed guests are more receptive to cross-selling in the days leading up to the stay. Use photography to convey value High quality photos convey the added value of upgrading rooms, such as showing more space or bigger beds. Personalize oers based on guest preferences Tailor your cross-sells based on what type of trip (business or leisure) your guest is taking. THE KEY TO SUCCESS Success in cross-selling comes from appealing to the impulse buy. When it comes to the upsell, communicating value is most important. !

Posted by Steffan Berelowitz on September 8, 2015

Traveler 3.0: How will Generation Z navigate the globe ?

The Millennials might be the most talked-about generation of modern times, but it won’t be long before their successors—the so-called Generation Z—takes over. Born in the late 1990s at a time when smartphones were already widespread, Generation Z, also known as the iGeneration, now accounts for a quarter of the American population.

With the oldest of this group just now reaching adulthood, this cohort can hardly be called jetsetters. But being the most interracial and diverse of all generations, travel will certainly play an important role in their lives. Looking forward, here are some of the travel trends we expect from a generation that grew up with smartphones in the crib.

Digitally immersed

With so many devices at their disposal, Generation Z is arguably overconnected with extremely short attention spans, but what’s perfectly clear is that they’re a mobile-first generation, caring more about the latest devices than the coolest clothes. With everything beginning and ending on one’s phone, hotels and airlines will need to adopt the same mindset to capture this group of travelers. “Mobile-friendly” will no longer be enough; “mobile-centric” will be the standard.

The iGeneration expects to be able to research, book, pay for, and review travel all through their phone. Bookings through social media and mobile app check-ins and checkouts are a few of the ways the industry has begun to save its customers’ valuable time. And unlike Millennials, this is a generation that won’t have patience for travel companies not up to speed with their digital presence—if you are not available on mobile, you might as well not exist.

Generation Z is also one of immediacy, preferring texts to phone calls and emails. This could certainly change the way the travel industry handles customer service and other transactions. While social media has become a popular form of customer service for travel brands, we see the privacy-aware Generation Z shifting to less public methods of communication, using texting services like Teckst and Locent to communicate with airlines or hotels.

With Wifi now available in even the most remote locations, connectivity is already expected universally (and increasingly for free). But for Generation Z, relying on a wifi connection alone when traveling will not be enough. Roaming will be necessary as well, which is perhaps why carriers like T-mobile and Sprint have started to roll out complimentary international plans.

Explorers since birth

Growing up in an interracial and diverse environment, and being hyper-connected to the Internet since birth, Generation Z has grown up with an awareness of the world unseen in previous generations. As that manifests itself through travel, Generation Z will likely be more adventurous than their predecessors, making mainstream destinations previously considered to be “exotic.”

As for transportation, the Concorde is looking to make a comeback and vacuum tubes may become the transport of the future, but the push for faster and faster transportation may actually cause a backlash. Generation Z may rebel against the new modes of transportation and amplify the “slow travel” movement. Much like the “slow food” movement, “slow travel” celebrates the journey itself rather than the destination. Expect to see more bicycling tours and old-school railroad journeys in the future, and if the planned recreation of the Titanic ever finishes, we may see a comeback in luxury steamships as well.

Whether fast or slow travel, one thing is for certain: in the digital age, if you didn’t photograph it, it didn’t happen. The smartest travel brands will continue to find ways to satisfy the selfie generation with ways to capture and share unique travel moments. Will selfie drones become the GoPro of Generation Z?

Planning for the future

Travel brands shouldn’t wait for this new generation of travelers to come of age—the technology demands they bring with them will be needed the second the arrive. Travel sites will need to get better at personalizing recommendations, and everything from booking to payment will need to be easily managed across any digital device, whether smartphone or smartwatch. Loyalty programs will need some tweaking, as members of this generation are increasingly less brand loyal and more focused on being unique and one-of-a-kind.

Despite these obstacles, the travel industry has huge potential for growth, given the forecasted spending power of Generation Z. With globalization making exotic destinations less intimidating and more accessible, and with the members of Generation Z well-informed amidst the digital age, the future is soon likely to be populated with an even larger pool of savvy jetsetters.

Posted by Nancy Huang on September 1, 2015

Integrating local experiences to differentiate your hotel

With travel inherently rooted in destinations, it’s vital for hospitality companies to provide customers with high-quality local offerings. In recent years, there has been an even stronger push for hotels to deliver more authentic and integrated experiences, perhaps due to the preferences of the Millennial generation and the advent of the social media age. Today’s travelers want more than just a place to stay; they want to truly connect with the destination. Hotels can satisfy this need by integrating local products and activities into their amenities and offerings.

Incorporating local products

As farm-to-table dining has become increasingly praised for quite some time, hotels have also been adopting sustainable, environmentally friendly practices for their food and beverage offerings. Travelers are keen to sample local cuisine, and if ingredients come from nearby farms or the hotel’s own rooftop garden, then they will be all the more impressed.

And it’s not just smaller, boutique properties that are hopping on the culinary bandwagon. Even chain hotels are attempting to appeal to business travelers with discerning culinary tastes. Hyatt, for example, requires all of its restaurants to feature at least five local ingredients in their menu offerings. Drink lists are also being upgraded, with hotels across the globe offering beers brewed on-site.

Provenance Hotels does a particularly good job of telling a location-based story through the hotel experience. In addition to designing each hotel around a unique local theme and decorating its properties with locally produced art, Provenance offers its guests an array of local products so they can learn about the businesses flourishing in nearby areas. In Portland’s Hotel Lucia, for example, guests can sample local hand-harvested salt and handcrafted olive oil, as well as Bee Local honey, which is produced on the hotel’s own roof.

Organizing local activities

In addition to local products, hotels can also arrange for activities that allow guests to experience the destination in a way that goes beyond what’s typically found in tourist guides. Airbnb is currently experimenting with a new product, Experiences, which allows local residents to sell their own guided tours, similar to the way hosts offer up places to stay.

Guests can book such experiences as city tours, food and drink tastings, hikes, and bike excursions, which are only made available to them after they complete a booking on the site. Currently Airbnb’s experiences are only offered in San Francisco and Paris, but if things go well the company may expand the product to other cities.

Generator Hostels, part of a new breed of boutique hostel, offers its own events in the eight European cities where it has properties. Guests can take part in a group tapas tour in Barcelona, play petanque in Paris, sample whiskeys in Dublin, and much more. Each of the design-forward “poshtels” reflects its local culture and history. The branch in Berlin’s hip Mitte neighborhood, for example, celebrates the area’s thriving art scene. Generator also provides high-quality content in comprehensive guides of each of its markets, and even facilitates opportunities for guests to meet local residents.

Crafting your own unique offerings

When brainstorming ways to integrate local experiences into your own hotel’s special offers, amenities and packages, make sure to cater to a wide range of interest areas. Local food and products are always good places to start, and they’re easy to source and offer to guests.

It’s important to note that while higher quality local products can be more expensive than generic equivalents, they are worth it for the elevated experience, and can actually lower shipping costs since they’re transported from nearby. These products can be sold in the hotel’s gift shop, or offered complimentary as trial size toiletries or snacks in guest rooms.

When it comes to crafting local experiences, find ways to allow your guests to experience the destination as residents would. For example, instead of a typical guided city tour, craft a run or bike tour that takes guests through your city’s most scenic parks and walkways.

Another route is to create social experiences in which guests can meet and interact with local residents. Generator Hostels frequently hosts art and music events featuring local DJs, musicians, artists, and more. Roger Smith in New York City, which displays local art throughout the hotel, frequently hosts art talks and discussions that are open for guests and the public. Also consider the benefits of incorporating social media influencers into these local experiences, as they can bring an added layer of promotion and PR to the event.

All destinations are unique, so take advantage of your property’s neighboring community and everything it has to offer. Take time to fully explore the surrounding area’s history and culture, and come up with creative methods to commemorate them.

Five methods for increasing your Revenue per Available Room (RevPAR)

A common problem often facing hoteliers is how to increase revenue per available room, so let me share some tried and tested solutions to this age old problem.

Method 1

Although considered second nature by most modern revenue leaders, the adoption of length of stay (LOS) restrictions is the still the most effective way to increase revenue per room. To make a length of stay strategy even more effective, try implementing it through rate levels or market segmentation. However, to implement this strategy successfully requires the hotel to understand its booking patterns correctly.

Method 2

Using one of the many hotel industry benchmarking tools, understand your current position within the marketplace. Use this data to identify whether there are opportunities, either in volume or through rate changes.

Method 3

Hotels which tend to offer a variety of different room types can often benefit from reviewing the additional supplements for them which pose superior price points. By doing this, revenue can be increased with little or no impact on the volume of paid upgrades. In other cases, it can actually narrow the price difference between room types, increasing the volume to a higher level. By measuring the RevPAR alongside the room type, the hotel will be able to measure the success of these supplement changes.

Method 4

Reviewing a room type and its attributes, for example the view, a balcony or a Jacuzzi, can allow a hotel to introduce new room type levels within a current room type category, and as a result charge a supplement.

Method 5

By enhancing the offering in which a room includes, for example, access to the executive lounge or a solarium, a hotel can increase the perceived value of the rooms. As a result this can give a hotel a greater opportunity to increase the rates across various market segments.

About the author

Jesper Johansen is the Revenue Director at Michel’s & Taylor. Set up by Sir David Michels and Hugh Taylor, Michels & Taylor currently oversees, manages or advises over 100 hotels, from single assets to portfolios, from unencumbered to internationally branded. In addition to overseeing management teams on behalf of owners, Michels & Taylor also operates a pan-European consultancy operation and full service management company.

OTAs and the Billboard Effect

By Frederic Gonzalo - posted on August 13, 2015

In the tug of war between hoteliers and online travel agencies (OTA), have you ever wondered why hotels just don’t bother working with OTA anymore and just go at it alone, seeking to get direct bookings from travelers onto their own websites?

After all, commission levels are high with OTA, as they increase their market share, in particular on ever-increasing mobile transactions. But online travel agencies are both friends and foes, and one of the key benefits for hotels, in particular independent hotels, comes from the billboard effect.

What is the billboard effect?

In a seminal research published back in 2009, Chris Anderson, associate professor at Cornell University, found a direct correlation between visibility on an OTA site and uplift in direct bookings. In fact, it was estimated that the benefits from being shown in OTA search results could transform into a sales uplift between 8-15% for hotels. Not bad, right? But of course, things are rarely that simple.

We also know, from various studies published by Expedia Media Solutions or Google Think, that the customer path to purchase is not a linear process and that many variables come into play. In the United States, customers will visit on average 38 travel sites before buying a package, so while the billboard effect certainly plays a role in the process, it remains elusive to isolate this factor alone in the decision-making process.

Death of the billboard effect?

A recent study swings in the opposite direction, boldly claiming that the billboard effect is dead, if it ever existed. As reported initially by Tnooz, this study was conducted in 2014 and took a look at 50,000 online travel shoppers, finding that users who browsed hotel sites tended to ultimately purchase their hotel stays via online travel agencies like Expedia, Booking, TripAdvisor and similar intermediaries. The full report is slated for publication later in 2015, early 2016.

The methodology used is different than the one used by the study conducted by Cornell University. A similar point, though, is that mobile device users were not considered in this recent study. While I can understand this omission from the 2009 study, it makes no sense not to consider mobile users nowadays, knowing they represent more than 50% of online travel searches, and more than 25% of online travel revenues.

So, is the billboard effect really dead? Reading between the lines from the results provided in the Tnooz article, things aren’t so crystal clear. There certainly seems to be less of an impact, and OTA are said to be doing a better job at keeping users on their site until transaction time. But there is nothing in the results that can justify such a bold statement as “billboard effect is dead”.

Lazy man’s approach

Back in 2011, HeBS Digital coined the expression “Lazy Man’s Approach” when referring to hotels relying on the billboard effect for their online distribution and thus justifying working closely with OTAs. The fact of the matter is, the billboard effect is only one element in a complex online distribution ecosystem that hoteliers and hospitality marketers ought to master in order to succeed and achieve their business objectives.

Nowadays, hotels must embrace omni-channel marketing, which combines content marketing, traditional advertising and digital tactics across various platforms, social networks and devices. There are no silver bullets, just like the billboard effect was never a solution in and of itself.

Online bookings are evolving

The truth of the matter is, the online travel distribution is becoming more complex, as recent developments have demonstrated. In this evolving landscape, Google is now a pure player, Amazon is getting serious about destination travel, TripAdvisor is morphing into a real OTA, Expedia is digesting Travelocity and Orbitz acquisitions made earlier in 2015 while Priceline is getting serious in the China travel distribution market.

What’s a hotelier to do? With rate parity clauses now under serious fire in Europe, it’s only a matter of time until these changes come into play in North America and elsewhere across the globe. So how can hotels convince internet users to book on their own website rather than on an OTA? Well, more than ever, some best practices apply:

Best rate guarantee: Let users and visitors to your site know that they will get the best price, period. You can match rates found elsewhere, shave another 10%, or whatever. Just let people know that once they’ve found your site, there is no need to book elsewhere since you guarantee this. Which means people can trust your site, and trust is of utmost importance online. Just like it is offline.

Rewards program: Do you have a loyalty scheme in place or at least basic customer relationship management communications processes, sending out emails and newsletters? You should. Sending out special offers or value-add promotions is always a good practice, specially when addressing your customer base. Let them know about your best rates, or perhaps even implement a refer-a-friend discount or promotion, while you’re at it….

Deals on others accounts or social networks: We all fall into a very common trap which is to think the same people follow us across our various communication outposts. They don’t. If you have a special deal on your website, make sure to talk about it on your blog, in your newsletter, or on your Facebook Page. A great example? Check out how Roger Smith Hotel in New York City reminds Twitter users about their 10% discount when booking direct. Simple. Effective.

Invest in content marketing: Last but not least, you need to have a content marketing approach in place. Whether it is through a corporate blog, a news section or promotions offered on your site, producing fresh content contributes to a better organic performance for your site which, in turn, means you are less dependent on advertising and PPC campaigns. Unfortunately, many hoteliers still do down the path of least friction, banking on the billboard effect or traditional campaigns applied in the online world.

So, is the billboard effect really dead? I personally don’t think so but you will have understood from this post that it doesn’t really matter, either. Hoteliers shouldn’t rely too heavily on OTAs to begin with, even though there are still benefits to be reaped from this relationship. Like anything else in life, it’s a matter of striking the perfect balance, which is easier said than done.

Posted by Joan Evelyn Lee on August 13, 2015

Upselling and cross-selling: the difference and why it matters for hotels

Upselling and cross-selling are both great ways for hotels to boost incremental revenue on bookings, though the difference between these two strategies isn’t always clear.

Put simply, upselling involves getting a customer to spend more on an existing purchase, such as upgrading their choice of room, while cross-selling involves selling ancillary products or services, such as a massage treatment or city tour, on top of the original purchase.

Point of difference established, how can hotels maximize the opportunity to boost revenue through these two sales tactics?

The art of upselling

Asking customers to spend more on an existing booking naturally requires giving them a compelling reason to do so. Properties like Duane Street, Refinery, and Park Central do a great job of this by featuring side by side comparisons of their rooms, so guests can see exactly what they’ll be getting if they decide to upgrade. The use of incremental pricing can also be used to enhance the attractiveness of an offer. Saying a room is just “$54 more” sounds a whole lot more appealing than “$485 per night.” 

Going one step further, letting customers know when there’s a limited number of rooms left can create a sense of urgency and also build desire by promoting scarcity — both of which can be powerful tools to help boost conversions.

Photography also plays an important role. Having quality photos that show off the room’s best features is one of the most effective ways to demonstrate added value to a customer. Make a point to emphasize differences, such as additional beds or increased size. For example, this noticeably bigger Deluxe Queen room at Duane Street can be had for only $61 more per night.

The art of cross-selling

When it comes to cross-selling, timing is crucial. It might be tempting to try and promote ancillary products and services during the booking process, but this can actually be detrimental to the sale.

Our research has found that only 3% of travelers book add-ons during the booking process. In fact, presenting too many options at once can overwhelm customers and actually lead them to abandon their booking, which is why we recommend minimizing add-ons at the initial point of sale.

Confirmed guests are often most receptive to cross-selling during the “pre-trip buzz” phase leading up to their stay. This is when a well-timed email can encourage impulse purchases.

This is also another perfect opportunity to get to know the preferences of a guest and tailor suggestions accordingly. For instance, if a hotel knows a couple is on their honeymoon or celebrating a special anniversary, offering to arrange a romantic tour or private dinner reservation is likely to be favored.

However, properties like the Townhouse Hotel in the Netherlands are taking the guesswork out of this approach with their pre-arrival email, which actively asks customers if there’s anything they specifically need during their stay.

Other examples of this proactive strategy include Airbnb’s promotion of local activities and experiences to guests staying in San Francisco and Paris. Meanwhile, Hilton Worldwide are now providing a digital check-in service that lets members select upgrades and request additional amenities prior to arrival. Of course, using data gathered from previous bookings is still one of the best resources to target past guests with future offers and incentives.

The key to success

The difference between upselling and cross-selling is more than just definition; it’s about strategy. When it comes to the upsell, communicating value is most important, while success in cross-selling comes from appealing to the impulse buy.

Ultimately, it’s about knowing your customer. Upgrades and ancillary products should ideally be personalized to each customer, sales messages should be well-timed, and customers should be able to clearly see the value of what they’re paying extra for.

If hotels take the time to understand what their guests want and carefully promote their products and services accordingly, the boost to incremental revenue can be significant.

SHP+ Revenue Management Seminars 2016/17

We are inviting your reservation and revenue management teams to learn and experience the newest revenue management techniques and tools.
Our hotel revenue professionals have over 25 years continuous experience of revenue and yield management.  You will profit from their hands-on best practices and exercises. Your reservation and revenue teams will learn to increase your bottom line and maximize your NOI. 

We are conducting 1- and 2- day seminars for introductory and advanced levels of experience. These seminars will be customized your specific
requirements and priorities.  Share with us your main challenges and room inventory sizes.  We will meet in advance to discuss a proposed agenda and
learning plan. Our seminar fees are very competitive and depending on group size and duration.

We look forward to your feedback and appreciate the opportunity to improve your hotel's profitability.

Contact  info@swisshotelplus.com for more information.
Office USA:    +1-914-484-5580
Office Europe: +41-79-134-3000 (eff. 6.04.2016)

Posted by Fred Leuthold on Feb. 16, 2016

6 reasons you should book your stay directly with the hotel instead of a third-party booking site.

By Karina Martinez-Carter 
Step, or rather navigate, away from Expedia, Hotels.com and all their like. The best room, rate, service and stay come right from booking with the hotel directly.
While third-party booking sites can be a useful starting point for researching what hotels are available in certain destinations and at what price points, that’s probably the extent to which they should be used. Reserving directly with a hotel is the safest and best bet for reasons ranging from receiving special treatment to direct recourse should something go wrong.
Accountability: When the reservation relationship is between the guest and the hotel only, it’s clean and easy because there are only two parties involved: the customer and the business. When a third party (booking site) gets involved is when things can get messy. For example, sometimes reservations are not actually processed and the site and the hotel can pass the blame back and forth. This can potentially leave you with the wrong room or without a room at all, and there’s little hope for recourse.
If you want to see some horror stories, take a gander at ConsumerAffairs.com, where Hotels.com has 1/5 stars from more than 1,300 reviews.
Price matching: The big and probably only draw with booking through sites like Kayak and Travelocity is that they seem to turn up the lowest prices, even if it’s just by just a few dollars. But what’s not yet common (enough) knowledge is that most hotels — especially chain hotels — will scramble to get your direct booking and match any price out there. All you have to do is present the cheaper price you found elsewhere for the same stay.
Marriott has a Look No Further Best Rate Guarantee policy that promises that it will not only match the lowest hotel rate found, but also give an extra 25% discount.
Room choice: Hotels only set aside a certain block of rooms for third-party platforms. Obviously, hotels keep the best rooms and most variety for themselves to sell directly. This can make a big difference when it’s a property where a standard room can vary greatly in size, which is especially common in old properties constructed ages ago, when rooms (and, well, people too) were smaller. A little online research can often unearth what type of room might really be linked to booking through a third-party site, like this petite room in Boston from Priceline.
More flexibility: When you book directly, hotels will often be more willing and able to help should you need to change your dates or even cancel, because they’re not bound by some third-party deal. Reserving a hotel room through a third-party site can essentially creates and lock in a contract for a stay, which can limit wiggle room for the guest and hotel staff.
This also means that if you book directly, the hotel can do more to compensate a guest — like waive the cost of an entire stay — should something go wrong or not be up to snuff.
Better service, plus perks: Hotel staff might not come out and say it, but they’re inclined to treat guests better when those guests are giving them more money. Direct bookings are more profitable to them than ones through third-party sites that take a cut, and staff generally can see right in the computer system how a room was booked. They’re definitely checking the computer when a guest drops a hint about an upgrade.
Also, someone who reserves a room on a site like Expedia is a prime pick for “walking,” which is when a guest is sent to another property because of overbooking (a common practice) according to Jacob Tomsky, author of Heads in Beds: A Reckless Memoir of Hotels, Hustles and So-Called Hospitality. 
Hotels also have the power and inventory to go above-and-beyond a standard hotel booking to create special packages or throw in perks like free breakfast. For example, Starwood is currently running an offer for its Mexico and Panama resorts that include free nights, food and beverage credits and upgrades. Third-party platforms only work with the basics, which for hotels is just rooms.
Points: The only way to earn hotel loyalty points for a stay and climb the hospitality stairway to status heaven is to book directly with the property. Some platforms do run their own independent rewards programs, but those points are only good on their specific sites.

Your comments are appreciated to info@swisshotelplus.com

Posted by Fred Leuthold on January 16, 2015

FOUR KEY DESIGN PRINCIPLES CAN HELP YOU TO INCREASE CONVERSIONS AND INSPIRE DIRECT BOOKINGS.

With all the talk in the industry about modern web design and the importance of responsive hotel websites, it’s surprising to see that many hotel booking engines still haven’t adapted to the times. Perhaps it’s just easy to say that change is hard and “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” but we here at Swiss Hotel Plus+ would argue that something is indeed broken. OTAs continue to capture more and more bookings from hotels, and recent reports reveal that the younger generation actually prefers booking through OTAs instead of directly with hotels. Part of this is due to the booking process on most hotel websites. Today’s consumers expect a level of sophistication and ease in their digital experiences, and most hotel booking engines are exactly the opposite: clunky and difficult to use. When it comes to booking engines, good design isn't just about good looks, it’s about creating the optimal space in which to capture a booking. The newest travel disruptors know how important this is — just look at the meteoric rise of companies like HotelTonight and Airbnb, both of which place a heavy emphasis on design. What does good design look like for hotel booking engines?  Here are four principles to keep in mind:

PRINCIPLE #1: THE CALL TO ACTION MUST BE OMNIPRESENT.  

The reserve button, and its accompanying booking widget, is your gateway to conversion. It should never be difficult to find, and with today’s web functionality, it should never disappear off the page. Modern web design allows you to make headers and other items on a page “sticky,” meaning that you can always access those buttons no matter how far you have scrolled down on a page. Take for example the NU Hotel in Brooklyn, which places its booking widget in the upper right corner of the website. As you scroll down the page, the navigation bar and reserve bar “stick” to the top of the page, and the booking widget drops down as soon as you hit the “Reserve” button.

PRINCIPLE #2: PICTURES SELL.

All of us in the travel industry understand how important beautiful photography is for selling hotels. That’s why we invest in professional photos. But when it comes to the point of sale, why is it that most booking engines reduce the photo to a tiny thumbnail? Airbnb built its brand on good photography, which they say can “make or break” a listing. Its recent site redesign puts photos front and center for prospective guests, and the site also provides photo tips and free professional photography for hosts.

PRINCIPLE #3: MINIMIZE CLUTTER, MAXIMIZE WHITESPACE.

Simplicity is one of the core principles of good design. Somehow this concept has been lost on most hotel booking engines, which tend to clutter their pages with all sorts of information, from the dozens of room type options to the listing of terms and conditions. You know you’ve got too much going on when the booking page itself offers to “Have us call you” because the reservation process is too complicated.

In building RezTrip+, one of our primary goals was to keep the design clean. We keep text minimal and use overlays and drop-down sliders to conceal information until the user needs it.  For example, room types are shown only by photo until a user clicks on “Room details.”  Then an overlay appears that provides a room description and included amenities. The screen remains uncluttered and easy to read.

PRINCIPLE #4: WHEN IT COMES TO CHOICES, LESS IS MORE.

We have written extensively about consumer psychology and how it affects hotel bookings, but it’s important to reiterate — having less options actually increases conversions! Unbounce, a conversion marketing company, highlights several interesting case studies in this regard:

• Increasing social share buttons decreased shares by 29%
• Decreasing webinar registration options from 4 to 3 increased conversions by 17%
• Reducing the number of form fields in a landing page from 11 to 4 increased submissions by 160% and increased conversions by 120%

It all has to do with the psychology of choice. Too many options can overwhelm the decision-making process and lead to what is called “action paralysis.” Many booking engines by default present to you not only the base rate for each room type, but also all of the available packages and promotions as well. In this example from New York Hilton Midtown, there are eight options alone for the first room type. Counting all the room types and rates available, there are 47 options in total. And all this before you even tell them your name!

Our hotel booking engine RezTrip+ takes the psychology of choice into account by limiting the number of options during each step of the booking process. First we ask users to choose their room type. We display only five room types at a time; guests can easily find a specific type through the filter buttons.