Let’s start at the beginning: What is Rate Parity?

Rate parity refers to the practice of ensuring consistent pricing for a hotel rooms across various booking platforms, including the hotel’s website, online travel agencies (OTAs), and third-party booking sites. It’s crucial for hotels to maintain rate parity because it promotes fair competition among these channels, preventing price discrepancies that can confuse customers and harm the hotel’s reputation.

By upholding rate parity, hotels guarantee uniform room prices across all booking avenues, reducing the chances of potential guests choosing an OTA over the hotel’s official website. This, in turn, allows the hotel to retain control over its pricing strategy, minimize commission expenses, and enhance profit margins.

Furthermore, rate parity fosters trust between hotels and guests. When guests observe consistent rates across all channels, they are more likely to view the hotel as a dependable and honest accommodation provider. This trust-building can lead to guest loyalty, repeat bookings, and contribute to the hotel’s long-term success,

Here are some steps hotels can take to maintain rate parity:

►Monitor pricing: Hotels should regularly monitor their own rates as well as the rates of their competitors and OTAs to ensure they are in line and ideally best value and rate is always bookable via direct channels.

►Use a channel manager: A channel manager can help hotels to manage rates and availability across all channels in real-time, reducing the risk of rate disparities.

►Google’s business card serves as an excellent illustration of the importance of maintaining consistency across all distribution channels. In addition, leveraging this tool can potentially give you a competitive edge over OTAs, ultimately boosting traffic to your hotel and driving up conversion rates.

►Direct booking incentives – Offer value-added services such as

• Free breakfast
• Free welcome drink / bottle of wine
• Room upgrades
• Late Checkout and Early check in

►Packages – adding packages is a great way to differentiate your offering from the OTAs. Our RevTechPartner Profitroom allows you to create content rich packages which can easily be linked to your website, email and social media.

►Abandoned Cart functionality allows customers to return quickly to where they left off and also for us to send them email reminders of searches they have made. Convert these lookers into bookers by throwing in an attractive discount or catching them with a nice extra added during their stay.

►Discounts – Attract new customers to your site with

• Early Bird Offers
• Last minute Offers
• Closed User Groups (Promo codes / Loyalty / Corporate / Events)

If you decide to opt into an OTA promotion in the low season you should look to replicate this on the Booking Engine.

Full article with illustrations at https://www.profitroom.com/resources/articles/our-top-tips-for-maintaining-rate-parity/

For more information on how to maintain rate parity or to find out more about the best suite of solutions that can help you do this, follow www.profitroom.com