I appreciate that because I’m MD of a hotel wholesale company, that I should know about my product. But I do not know about each of the 95,000 unique hotels we have on the system.
If I was to spend one night at each, I would need about 220 years.
And why does a Travel Agent want a recommendation? Ultimately, it is to have a successful booking that delivers to expectations and is profitable. Good for business. People are more regularly visiting a significantly broader number of destinations. So how do you select the hotel for the successful booking?
Here are my five recommendations:
1. Know they preference
Everyone has different tastes and expectations. Find out about them. Can you get some history that reflects upon the sort of experience they are looking for. Easier to deliver to expectations if you know what they are.
2. Location, location, location
It is more critical in some cities than others. You definitely don’t want to be on the wrong side of Mumbai. Can you put them on the same side of a destination as the airport? Is it going to be noisy? Where else do they want to go?
3. Check recommendations, carefully
The gold standard is TripAdvisor but Agents are smart enough to know how it all works. You can see the patterns. Start with the scores then read the comments. It’s a guide, not a Bible. roomsXML uses preferred properties which are a measure of properties with lots of bookings and very few problems.
Always good to know the incentive pathway on prices at properties as well.
4. Find the gem
Once you have a list of properties and prices, try and find the outlier. You will see patterns in the rankings and rates and with enough numbers, there will be standout properties. They can really be a wildcard.
5. Find the options but give the passengers some input
I’m a big advocate, even if the passenger says they want a specific property, to give options, to a maximum of three. Include a wildcard from above and a couple of statistical standards, it gives them some choice and input. Therefore they own the decision and their excitement will make it work.