What ALL Hosts Should know about Booking Platforms

Are you experiencing market limitations? It’s time to change. A quick history lessons…

Look what happened between Booking.com and Airbnb.Booking.com is an online platform for booking accommodation which includes hotels, holiday homes, hostels, and such. Airbnb then entered the market with local hosts offering up spare rooms. Later, they added holiday homes and apartments to their stock, and boutique hotels.

The range of property available to each platform is limited by the site’s mission and position. Despite their overlap in some property classifications, some categories are considered a core service to each separate platform – you want a hotel you go to booking.com, you want something a little less formal you go to Airbnb. So, both businesses have their slice of the market.

But what if someone wants to go to London for two weeks in July but they haven’t decided whether they want to stay in a hotel, a guesthouse, a bed and breakfast, or a combination of. They would have to swap between the two platforms all the while trying to keep tabs of who is offering what on which date; all the while getting frustrated with the process. One booking platform that lists ALL types of holiday accommodation would make so much sense!

This is Where Booking Platforms Have Missed the Mark

What was the original idea behind the establishment of booking platforms? Surely it was to simplify the lives of those looking to make a travel booking. It should be as easy as an online shop for travel accommodation. Login – Search – Select. As easy as 1-2-3. Unfortunately, it’s not.

Your prospective guest is in front of their laptop with their mobile phone in on hand, a calendar full of scribbled notes and highlighters are scattered around their desk as they swap between price-comparison sites like Agoda.com and Trivago.com, another site offering apartments-only.com, then on to local hosts, and finally branded hotels – all in an attempt to make one booking.

Does having to navigate between all these multiple platforms make it faster, easier, or in any way better for your guests to make a booking?

The Secret is in Finding an All-in-one Booking Platform

Rather than having your future guests become frustrated while trying to book their next holiday, imagine they can easily find you on a booking platform that includes all of the accommodation categories. That way they don’t have to leave the site you’re on to do a comparison and possibly lose you altogether the process.

Ask yourself these very important questions: When guests leave my listing and immediately begin the same search on another platform, possibly to compare prices, do they make their way back to my listing afterward?  The answer is a big fat NO. People are too distracted by all the backwards and forwards when all they want to do is make a booking. Is there a platform that lists all categories? The answer is a big round YES!

… AND if your listing isn’t on it you will be left out. Guests are looking for convenience and we have established that the other platforms aren’t delivering on that promise. The truth is incorporating different accommodation categories on a single platform will improve your guest’s booking experience, making it easier, better, and faster.

Break Out of the Box and Watch Your Listing Gain Traction

Join the ranks of forward-thinking hosts who have already realized the tremendous advantages of listing on a platform that guarantees users STAY because it contains listings in all categories and in all price ranges. This platform is the ultimate online shop for travel accommodation, and it is as easy as: Login – Search – Select. Benjamin Franklin once said that change is the only constant in life and one’s ability to adapt to those changes will determine your success (or failure).

If you want to learn more about how your listing can succeed when it is visible on the world’s first booking platform that welcomes ALL booking categories be sure to read our next article: “Two Quick Secrets to Being Fully Booked.”