What you don’t know about the profile of customers preferring online agencies
Understanding customer behavior can help you increase your potential as an online travel agency (OTA). You can better manage the marketing activities and future plans of your agency by getting to know your existing customer profile. You may want to take a look at the latest studies about the types of services that your potential guests seek from OTAs that may help understand their expectations and concerns.
A survey carried out by the Brandon Agency reveals which purposes potential customers use OTAs for. According to the survey, almost half of online travel purchases are made through online travel agencies. Online agencies are becoming stronger in the accommodation industry. But do you know how you stand in the industry?
As HotelRunner, we are sharing with you the results of this research that can help you evaluate customer habits from a different perspective.
Deciphering the figures
The study has been carried out with 2000 people who travel an average of 1.5 times annually, here are the results:
29 percent of customers use online agencies only for booking rooms from hotels.
19 percent prefer the combination of hotel/airline/car rental for their travels.
5 percent prefer online agencies only for airline-related purchases, while 2 percent prefer them for renting cars.
45 percent of customers visit online agencies for price comparison and then prefer searching the property directly.
Highlights
According to the study, more than half of travelers utilize OTAs. However, the number of those within the group who choose holiday packages is low. Potential customers are observed to choose options like accommodation, airline, bus, rental car separately. The highest number of bookings are made for hotels.
Probably, the most outstanding finding of this study involves the rate of customers who visit online travel sites only to compare prices. Although these users do not engage with online agency services, they visit their websites. It is possible to see the potential of turning these visits into opportunity at this point: Various strategies can be implemented like regular discounts, campaigns, social promotions to draw their attention as soon as users visit the website and encourage them to make a purchase.
Conclusion
The underlying potential is as high as the rate of customers already engaging with OTA services. Incorporating this group into your promotional and marketing activities is the best way to expand your customer portfolio. You may consider offering options like accommodation and transportation separately rather than in holiday packages, which are observed not to be preferred as much.
You can benefit from such studies when determining marketing strategies for your online agency. If you are using the HotelRunner platform, you can analyze your existing and potential customer group with the advanced analytics reporting service. Integrated with Google Analytics, HotelRunner provides you with a robust web infrastructure and virtual POS support. Create your account now to carry your services to the Internet seamlessly.
