Why Smart Hotel Booking Reconfirmation Is Essential for Travel Agency Survival
Why Smart Hotel Booking Reconfirmation Is Essential for Travel Agency Survival Travel agencies and OTAs are in an unprecedented situation that puts the business at stake. With a 40% cancelation rate on hotel bookings and uncertainty associated with no-shows resulting in the loss of on average 6.7% percent of an agency’s revenue each year, smart hotel booking reconfirmation is no longer an optional facility; it’s a survival tool. In this post we look at the reasons why rolling out Smart hotel reconfirmation systems is becoming a necessity not a luxury for travel agencies and OTAs who seek to enjoy long term success. The Critical Challenge of Ignoring Smart Hotel Booking Reconfirmation Travel agencies and OTAs working without smart hotel booking reconfirmation systems are gambling with their existence. The fallout is not only operational but a threat to agency profitability and its place in the market. Smart Hotel Booking Reconfirmation Prevents Revenue Loss from No-Shows The financial implications for travel agencies are massive. In 2019, hotel cancellation rates increased to 40% according to hotel industry data released recently, but there is better news on that front: SiteMinder indicates this has now averaged 20%. But even this “improved” rate involves huge commission losses, which most agencies are not prepared to absorb. Each hotel no-show is a lost commission opportunity for the travel agencies and a potential strain on the agencies’ relationship with hotel partners. The seasonal nature of these losses compounds the problem. Since 2019, the summer months of June, August and September have registered the largest group of hotel revenue losses, leading to uncertain cash flow when agencies are most in need of certainty. Operational Chaos in Agency Operations Manual hotel booking reconfirmation processes for hotels are a logistical bottleneck that paralyzes travel agencies in the hotel booking process. Agency staffers have to make phone calls in different time zones, work through language barriers with international hotel components, and deal with slow responses when it gets particularly busy. In the case of busy travel agencies processing hundreds of hotel bookings each day, these inefficiencies are exacerbated during the high-travel seasons. The result is operational chaos, preventing agencies from taking full advantage of their most lucrative booking periods and drowning staff in repetitive confirmations. Customer Trust Destruction and Agency Reputation Damage The most potentially fatal effect on the agency’s survival is damage to customer relationships. In the case of hotel booking discrepancies once travelers are on site, when the hotel booking isn’t correct, they don’t blame them but their travel agency. This is especially damaging for luxury travel agencies whose high-end clients expect nothing less than perfection. Modern travelers can magnify the negative, with powerful social media and review sites compounding the damage to an agency’s standing from hotel booking reconfirmation errors. It’s been statistically proven that 60% of travelers will change agencies after only one or two bad experiences, stabbing the agency client list and future commission in the back. Smart Hotel Booking Reconfirmation: The Agency Survival Solution Smart hotel booking reconfirmation systems provide the solution to these survival threats through automation at a total level, recalibrating the way agencies go about hotel booking and client servicing. Seamless Integration with Agency Systems Modern smart hotel booking reconfirmation technology integrates seamlessly with agency booking engines and CRM systems to eliminate information silos resulting in hotel booking failures. Agency-specific CRMs are used to capture hotel booking leads from a variety of channels (agency websites, social, referral partners), and each hotel inquiry is automatically recorded and assigned to an agency agent. In real-time, through API interfaces, the systems exchange hotel booking information across different agency platforms to ensure data precision during the lifecycle of a client. This connectivity provides all agency departments with access to the same up to date hotel booking data, so the miscommunications that cause customer inconveniences are avoided. Eliminating Time-Consuming Manual Tasks for Agencies Smart hotel booking reconfirmation very significantly reduces agency workload via AI-based automatic process. Zeal Connects’ AI hotel booking reconfirmation features Artificial Intelligence powered chatbots that replicate human voice to take care of hotel booking reconfirmation automatically for reservations. The setup helps pass most hotel auto-attendants, hold music and transfers and can approve and verify bookings directly with hotel staff, bypassing the agency intervention. Rather than having agents spend hours placing the same calls to hotels and receiving confirmations, automated technology ensures that confirmations come in seconds, in any time zone, significantly reducing human errors. Agencies are reporting “tremendous productivity”, which is enabling agents to dedicate more time to selling and providing better client service and less time doing administration. Real-Time Communication That Enhances Agency Service Smart hotel booking reconfirmation platforms send personalized, just-in-time communications for hotel bookings, directly across channels. They do so by process of automatically sending hotel booking updates, check-in reminders, and property information to clients via means of a mobile app, email, or SMS messages all personalized with the company’s identity. Agencies and clients receive up to the minute hotel booking information, simultaneously making the agency look proactive, professional, and cutting down on service calls from clients. Enhancing Client Experience with Smart Hotel Booking Reconfirmation Smart hotel booking reconfirmation transforms agency client experience from a potential liability into a competitive advantage that drives business survival. Building Client Trust Through Proactive Service Hotel booking confirmation emails have very high open and click through rates, creating a great opportunity for agencies to highlight their worth. Automatic notifications of hotel booking modifications, room upgrades, and check-in procedures are sent without the need for agency staff to become involved, which presents the agency as responsive and professional. Confidence That Converts to Agency Revenue Smart hotel booking reconfirmation inherently generates client trust in agency products directly to loyalty and repeat business. Hotel verification, which usually takes place 48-72 hours before arrival, guarantees that everything is correct and highlights the agency’s detail-oriented approach. This level of structured commitment commonly results in extra hotel reservations at time of reconfirmation, turning a routine operation event into an agency revenue producing event
