Billboard Effect in Marketing and How to Make Most of It for Your Hotel

If you’ve listed your hotel on an online travel agency (OTA), you might have noticed something surprising. Many guests still book directly on your website. This boost in website reservations is called the billboard effect in marketing. For hotel owners and managers, this is a powerful way to increase visibility, build trust, and drive more direct bookings while benefiting from OTA exposure. Let’s dive in to see how the billboard effect works and how you can apply it to your hotel.

What Is the Billboard Effect in Marketing for Hotels?

The billboard effect in marketing refers to the increase in direct bookings that a hotel experiences after being listed on OTAs, such as Booking.com and Expedia. When potential guests see your hotel on these platforms, they often visit your official website to learn more about the property and the experiences it offers. Indeed, a Google study shows that as many as 52% of travelers visit a hotel’s website after discovering it on an OTA.

Frequently, they book directly instead of completing the reservation through the OTA, at an average rate of 20%, especially if they see attractive benefits that come with direct bookings.

In simple terms, OTAs act like digital billboards that advertise your property to guests, even when they don’t capture the final booking. In this way, they become a crucial player in building your online hotel reputation management. That’s where the name of this strategy for marketing a hotel comes.

This innovative hotel marketing idea is essential for owners and managers because it combines the global reach of OTAs with the revenue advantages of direct bookings.

Statistics on Direct Bookings vs OTA Bookings

To give you an idea of why the billboard effect has such a strong potential, let’s take a look at some key numbers related to bookings via your website vs OTAs:

• Cancellations: An average of 40% of OTA bookings end up being cancelled, compared to a rate of only 14% for direct bookings. This means that website reservations partially alleviate the problem of last-minute cancellations, which is one of the hidden challenges of hotel management.
• Revenue: Hotels make 14% more from a direct booking than from a booking via an OTA, on average. The number goes up to 60% during peak season.

These are some serious reasons to make you think about how you can make the billboard effect in marketing work for your hotel, right?

Example of the Billboard Effect in Marketing

So, how does all this work in reality?

Imagine you’re a new hotel owner who just listed your property on Booking.com. Within days, you start receiving reservations from travelers worldwide. But here’s what surprises you: A growing number of guests are booking directly on your hotel’s website, mentioning they first found you on the OTA.

This is the billboard effect at work. The OTA provides visibility, credibility, and the first point of contact. Your official website then convinces guests to book directly, where they might find better pricing, loyalty benefits, or other perks.

The Billboard Effect in Hotel Marketing: Pros and Cons

Pros

• Increased Visibility: OTAs like Airbnb and Tripadvisor have massive global reach, putting your hotel in front of audiences you may never be able to reach alone.
• Trust and Credibility: Being listed on well-known OTAs gives your hotel legitimacy in the eyes of travelers, so they’re more likely to stay with you.
• Direct Bookings Boost: Many travelers check your website for additional info after seeing you on an OTA, and they might make these coveted higher-margin bookings if they find some irresistible offers.
• Higher Occupancy Rate: More reservations on your website have the potential to increase your hotel’s occupancy rates.
• More Revenue: As you don’t have to pay OTA commissions and fees, you end up making more money from each stay.
• Data Opportunities: Direct bookings coming from OTAs help you capture valuable guest data to enhance hotel guest experience and also use in your hotel email marketing strategies.

Cons

• Dependency Risk: The most significant downside is that you may become overly dependent on your listings on OTAs as a marketing strategy. To avoid this, continue to actively market and advertise your property on other channels, such as social media. Instagrammable hotels are a big hit right now.
• Price Pressure: Guests compare OTA prices with prices on your website, forcing you to stay competitive. The way out of this hurdle is dynamic pricing, which we’ll discuss shortly.
• Extra Workload: You must maintain consistent rates, content, and availability across all platforms. Introducing a channel manager to your hotel tech stack can help ease the stress.
• Lack of Direct Tracking: With guests coming directly to your website, it’s not always possible to know where they initially heard about you. Implementing a simple “How did you hear about us?” survey after check-out can help you improve tracking.

Billboard Effect in Marketing Your Hotel: Do’s and Don’ts

How to Make the Most of Billboard Effect in Hotel Marketing
Do’s	Don’ts
Have a top-quality website Offer unique benefits for direct bookings Use the power of strong visuals Take advantage of guest reviews Continuously track performance Automate a smart pricing strategy	Don’t lower prices too much Don’t stop paying attention to OTA listings Don’t forget to provide outstanding guest experience Don’t overcomplicate the booking process Don’t rely on a single booking source only

To maximize the billboard effect in marketing, hoteliers must be proactive in using OTA visibility to drive profitable direct bookings.

Here’s how

What to Do

• Build and Maintain a Professional Website: Ensure your hotel website is user-friendly, mobile-optimized, and fast-loading. You need to step up your hotel content marketing game as guests will compare your website against OTA pages.
• Provide Exclusive Perks: Offer complimentary breakfast, flexible hotel cancellation policy, unique on-site hotel coupons and deals, promo codes, or loyalty points that OTAs don’t have.
• Showcase Strong Visuals: Utilize professional photos and videos across OTAs and your website to maintain a consistent brand and make it appealing to various guest personas, including family guests and business travelers.
• Leverage Reviews: Encourage happy guests to leave reviews on OTAs and your website. Copy 5-star reviews from Airbnb, Expedia, and other OTAs to your website as testimonials. Let travelers easily see all the great experiences you provide as soon as they land on your website.
• Track Performance: Monitor the number of direct bookings that originate from OTAs and adjust your strategy accordingly.
• Optimize Pricing: Still, the best trick to convert OTA bookings into direct bookings is to build a dynamic pricing strategy. After all, the #1 factor that guests consider when making a reservation is the cost, especially when it comes to the same hotel offered in two different places. PriceLabs helps you set up automated pricing that takes into account occupancy, market demand, and competitors in real time. Meanwhile, you have full control over customizing your strategy based on the factors that matter the most to your hotel, such as seasonal pricing, last-minute discounts, length of stay, and others.

What Not to Do

• Don’t Undercut OTAs Too Aggressively: Setting drastically lower prices on your website can harm your OTA rankings and credibility compared to competitors, and negatively impact the billboard effect in marketing. You need to apply smart pricing.
• Don’t Neglect OTA Listings: If your OTA profile has poor images, an outdated description, or inconsistent rates, you’ll lose trust, and potential guests will never make it to your website to book directly.
• Don’t Ignore Guest Experience: The billboard effect works only if you provide a superior guest experience, and travelers can see this in your listings. Poor service and bad reviews can quickly ruin your strategy.
• Don’t Make Booking Difficult: Complicated reservation forms or hidden fees will push guests back to the OTA or away altogether.
• Don’t Rely on a Single Channel Too Heavily: To optimize your hotel revenue management strategies, work on a balance between OTA bookings and direct bookings. Don’t put your eggs in one basket to build a resilient and winning hotel business plan.

Wrapping Up

The billboard effect in marketing allows hotels to gain visibility through OTAs while encouraging travelers to book directly. In a way, it offers the best of both worlds: Exposure on the largest websites in the travel industry, combined with direct bookings for enhanced revenue. By keeping all your listings polished, offering exclusive perks, and using PriceLabs for smart pricing, hoteliers can turn OTA presence into long-term revenue growth.