The Quendoo team has launched a series of educational events in the country with hotels and accommodation owners where they demonstrate their technology tools and present solutions to generate more direct online sales, new audiences, at 15-20% higher average daily price, with zero or minimal advertising budget.
The goal is that both large, small and medium-sized family hotels, guest houses, lodges, hostels, campsites and holiday properties can successfully offer their accommodation to tourists and improve their sales processes through high-tech and at the same time affordable affordable solutions. The following venues are planned so far, with the May calendar to be announced soon.
09.03.2022 – Pomorie, 3:00 p.m. – City Art Gallery "Dechko Stoev"
04.05.2022 – Golden Sands, 11:00 a.m. – INTERNATIONAL Hotel Casino & Tower Suites.
12.04.2022 – Balchik, 11:00 a.m. – Blexirama Golf Resort
15.04.2022 – Veliko Tarnovo, in the calendar events of the 17th edition of the International Exhibition "Cultural Tourism"
18-21.04.2022 – Nessebar and Sunny Beach
Quendoo's initiative for more direct online bookings, higher online sales revenue and profits.
With the start of the upcoming 2022 summer season, the hotel industry relies on the presence of traditional local markets, such as Bulgaria, Serbia, Romania, North Macedonia, which also saved the summer season in 2020.
Small seasonal hotels, guest houses and holiday accommodation are facing a difficult task to survive given the high industrial energy costs, rising inflation and reduced purchasing power of the population. These challenges for the small players in the industry with the dilemma of whether to start operations during the summer season and at what cost.
The high competition of accommodation supply in the local markets requires constant efforts by hoteliers (large, medium and small) to attract a larger share of the market, new customers and fresh audiences, along with retaining loyal customers.
The formula is simple and looks like this: maximum occupancy at a high price.
The main channels through which guests book from local markets are the direct channel (including phone, email, chat, social networks, the hotel website) and intermediaries (including travel agencies and tour operators, online travel agencies such as Booking .com, Expedia, Airbnb, the GDS network, bad banks, metasearch engines, etc.)
The advantages of reservations made through third parties, including online travel agencies are the adaptive websites, large marketing and advertising campaigns that provide a wide range of audiences, as well as a simplified work process based on a commission upon booking.
At the same time, however, travel agencies, including online distribution channels have a common practice of reducing their commission to attract a higher volume of bookings, to the detriment of direct sales channels.
On the other hand, hoteliers do not have access to customer profiles and guest data, which prevents direct marketing communication with guests. Thus, potential customers know the OTA's brand better than the hotel's, and OTAs bid on the brand's keywords on Google so they can drive quality traffic to their website at the hotelier's expense.
A Cornell University study shows that 65% of hotel website visitors come from the major OTA sites where they first came across the hotel profile.
This is the so-called billboard effect.
Hotels should use OTA in their strategy to increase direct bookings through hotel sites. The idea is that OTAs serve as a "billboard advertisement" and a starting point for visitors to the hotel's website. Customers are looking for different things – prices and promotions, added value for direct bookings, flexible cancellation policies and more. Regardless of the reason, 2/3 of visitors to a hotel's OTA profile will visit the hotel's website, giving hoteliers a unique opportunity to drive free, quality traffic to their site. And here comes the moment when the hotelier has to convince the visitors to book directly and not to go back to the OTA site.
When a guest starts his search for a hotel, he uses Google or an online travel agency. In most cases, OTAs are used to search for available hotels in the region for the desired stay. The guest starts the search, often using filters based on price, or important services available (front line, pool, parking, etc.), rating or specific cancellation policy.
Once the visitor has selected several hotels, it is time to check the feedback and guest opinions. The reviews on the OTA page and other sites such as TripAdvisor or social networks are tracked. Of most importance are the most recent, most current reviews, which will appear at the top of the search.
If visitors like the comments and opinions left, they will visit the hotel's website. From that moment on, they will search for everything that is important to them such as cancellation policy, photo gallery, prices and promotions, etc.
One of the main ways to attract guests to book directly is to promote packages that are not available on OTA pages through special promotions and promo codes.
Hotels should not give visitors a reason to go back to the OTA site to complete their booking, but to use their booking engine.
That's why it's important to reinforce the hotel's overall online presence, using OTAs to work for the hotel, not against it.
A hotel website with a built-in booking engine at a promotional price of 50 euros for 1 year.
In order to generate traffic, a hotel should have its own dedicated hotel website that works seamlessly with other operating and hotel systems. With Quendoo, small and medium-sized hoteliers can create their own website in minutes and say goodbye to expensive updates and hosting fees.
The second element of online sales is conversions. In order for the hotel site to generate income and serve as a direct sales channel, and not just function as an information catalog, it is necessary to have a built-in booking engine (booking engine) with the possibility of online payments.
With such a tool, hotels and vacation properties can increase their revenue by up to 43%, taking bookings directly from the hotel's website or Facebook page, and turning the commissions they would pay to major OTAs into direct revenue.
Once the guest has visited the hotel's website and decided to book, the hotelier should use the moment to offer additional services, extras and packages to the guest.
With the functionality of the booking engine to add extras, hotels could provide opportunities for a better experience and leisure time. The addition of meal packages, bike rentals, extra beds, spa services, airport transfers, car rentals, excursions, ticket sales for festivals, sightseeing, tours, etc. allows easy and quick setup and management at the last step of the booking.
Quendoo eliminates the need for the small and medium hotelier to use expensive and time-consuming third-party services, replacing them with a single site that is connected, inexpensive and easy to maintain. The platform helps improve online presence and realize 15-20% higher revenue per night through its own direct online conversion channel, turning high commissions to TO into revenue.
Quendoo's mission is one of smart sales and a fair market. Successful tactics are now feasible and accessible not only to the large hotelier, but also to the small and medium player in the market, thanks to intelligent work tools.
Anyone wishing to take advantage of any of Quendoo's services could do so for free in the one-month trial period, with no maintenance and installation fees, with full customer support for loading customer profiles, pricing and tariff plans, and access to all new future functionalities of the platform.
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QUENDOO has been supported by "Vitosha Venture Partners Fund l", a private equity fund, co-financed by the European Structural and Investment Funds under the operational program "Innovation and Competitiveness 2014-2020", managed by the Fund Manager of Financial Instruments in Bulgaria. 
