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Tip Tuesday #5: Attract more bookings by increasing your visibility to mobile bookers

Hi Everyone, Aaron here from Sydney, Australia. I’m one of the Booking.com Account Advisors and in today’s post I wanted to share some tips on attracting mobile bookers to your property.

Did you know that even during these challenging times, bookings from mobile devices account for more than half the bookings made through our platform?  Mobile bookers can be a valuable source of demand for your property, now and in the future.  

Let your property stand out to these bookers with a special “Mobile deal” tag and added visibility on our app and mobile site, by  loading a mobile only rate.   You remain in control by choosing the discount % and by selecting up to  30 blockout dates.  You’ll also be able to check the performance of the special mobile rate through an easy to read report.

You can set this up in a few easy steps through your Booking.com Extranet.

Do you have any interesting strategies for attracting mobile bookers?  Share your tips with others partners in the comments below.

 


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M Adamopoulou 3 years ago

Thanks Aaron for suggesting this promotion...

I have used it in the past but since I didn’t see any reservations coming...I opted out...

Maybe for other partners works better...hope they can share their experiences with us.

Take care

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Aaron Account … 3 years ago

Hi M Adamopoulou,

 

Thank you for the reply. I’m sorry to hear that you did not have that much success with mobile rates.

 

There are a number of factors that influence the performance of a property on our website. These include quality availability, price relative to competitors and demand in your area. 

 

When demand returns to your region I’d recommend looking at the percentage of bookings coming through on mobile vs your competitor set. You can find this in the Analytics tab on the Extranet. You’ll be able to see if you are getting as much mobile bookings as others in your region. 

 

Best regards,

Aaron B. 

 

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M Adamopoulou 3 years ago

Thanks Aaron for your suggestions.

I will follow your advice...although demand at the moment is very low.

Keep well and have a nice day.

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fluff 3 years ago

Hi Aaron,

As you have raised the subject on behalf of BDC, could you please justify the tactic? I have never seen the point myself.

We appear on the mobile app anyway, our promos also show on the mobile app. Why should we offer extra discount for something we already have?

Not having a dig, just an honest question as I can only see it benefiting BDC, not us.

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Aaron Account … 3 years ago

Hi Fluff,

 

Thank you for taking the time to respond to the post. It’s a great question. 

 

You are correct in that all properties on Booking.com will feature on mobile devices. But the behaviour of our customers on this platform is different. On average, they are 20% more likely to attempt a booking when browsing our mobile site. The additional tagging and increased visibility on mobile for properties who use this feature, is also a sign to the guest that they are getting a valuable deal.

 

You can read more about our mobile rates in this post. Why not log into your Extranet and check out the Booker insights report. You can see how many of your bookings were made on a mobile device in comparison to competitors. 

 

Best regards,

Aaron B.

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fluff 3 years ago

Hi Aaron,

Thank you for the direct reply.

However, I'm still not convinced of any advantage in offering extra discount on top of any other already applied for both PC and mobile.

If we are expected to do this I don't think it at all fair. When we create a promotion it should for an across the board advantage, not conditional.

Unless you think it is ok for us to offer a lower service or access to less facilities to those that book with extra discount from the mobile app. !!!

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BrookAve 3 years ago

 

Hi

 

Its a terrible idea in this current climate as it is allowed to stack for Genius members.

While the bigger partners can take the hit to turn this on, 90% of the other small to medium partners cannot afford to.

 

There comes a point of  - deminishing returns - , probably not the right phrase but close to what i'm getting at.

So you have to be careful not to go past a certain threshold on rates

 

Kind Regards

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Aaron Account … 3 years ago

Hi BrookAve,

 

Thank you for commenting. Appreciate the honest feedback. 

 

It’s important to remember that not every mobile booker is a Genius member, so not every booking will incur a stacked discount. 

 

However, I agree with you that partners should always look at their own pricing versus volume strategy before implementing any discount. This is one of the reasons we make it easy to opt in and out and have some flexibility on the discount. 30 black out days are also on offer. 

 

Mobile rates have a great, easy to use reporting tool. In addition to tracking how many bookings you have received, you can monitor the average rate of those bookings. This may be helpful in assessing if this discount is right for your property.  

 

Best regards,

Aaron B.

 

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Ms. Quý 3 years ago

I have used it but no booking coming. It not work actually.