Checklist 1. is your position compared to your 7 or 8 of your closest competitors. It's how you look from 100 miles away. From there the booker really doesn't know your area or what you can offer him or her to persuade them to book. The key failure here is bookers mostly click back to the OTA's site due to a fog of indecision. You just lost a direct booking and an OTA commission of 15-20% is now going to be taken off the bottom line of your booking from this person.
It's a 60 minute job to complete this checklist. But it will establish the facts - what does the Distant Booker's shortlist look like - who's are your real competitors - where are you in their decision process?
The questionnaire is issued as part of the Red Card Survey - a hotelier can print out as many as needed
This is part of the checklist. We can see here that our target hotel has scored 29 /48 - so a lot of improvement avaiable and not really pulling ahead of the competition at all. No bedroom window pictures, no friendly staff pics. Only one picture of a breakfast and just a couple of pictures of the surrounding areas. A potential booker will make up their own minds about why certain pictures are not shown and it's usually negative. If you don't show a picture or two of the area outside the property a book assumes it's on an industrial estate or next to a motorway. No pictures from bedroom windows? I'm reminded of a hotel I stayed at in Ireland - there was a brick wall six feet away from the window and no view at all but bricks. If you don't show a potential guest they'll assume the worst.
Addressing what's missing from the checklist will win bookings. There's nothing on the checklist that's difficult - it's about trimming out excess pictures and content to tune it up and adding what's missing.
This is the checklist you'll want to use to identify your true competitors through the eyes of a Distant Booker. This short checklist will define those 3 or 4 real competitors as a distant booker would see them - not you. By starting with your hotel + 7 others you'll get a good overview and see the important ones as the results are compiled. Email me if you want to know more - I'll send you the checklist and you can try it out yourself.
We've restricted the checklist to the primary pictures and text. A website must impress a potential guest fast to get on their shortlist so this focuses on the must-have pictures, text, links, and hospitality industry best practice.