How to Solve Common Challenges in Your Booking Funnel

Do you know where you’re losing guests along the journey? Today's travellers face a complex journey from research to booking. The competition is fierce for hoteliers, and so is the pushback from OTAs. That’s why it's vital to optimise the booking funnel to ensure a smooth transition from research to booking.

The booking funnel includes every step a potential guest takes, from discovering your hotel to finalising their booking. Understanding and optimising this process is crucial. Each stage, from awareness to booking, has its own challenges and opportunities. By addressing these, you can influence guest behaviour and boost conversion rates.

In this blog, we look at common challenges at each stage of the booking funnel. Plus, we will give you actionable strategies to overcome them.

Low traffic in the awareness stage

When guests start thinking about their travels, they may begin browsing for hotels. If you’re in luck, guests have found your hotel and are now starting to get familiar with your brand. This is the awareness stage—the top of the funnel where potential guests first learn about your hotel and what you offer.

Visibility is crucial at this stage. It's where your marketing and brand-building efforts can truly shine. Ideally, your marketing has already made potential guests aware of your brand. However, for smaller and individual hotels, this is often not the case. A common problem at this stage is low traffic to your website. This can result from several factors and may take time to rectify. However, investing in building awareness will yield long-term benefits.

The first step is to ensure your site is SEO-optimised. From titles to descriptions and ‘About’ pages, make sure you target the right keywords and regularly update your website with high-quality content. This improves your ranking on search engines, helping you move towards the front page for your targeted keywords. Another way to boost visibility is by investing in targeted online advertising on Google Hotel Ads or social media. These campaigns help you reach traffic that has already shown interest in what you can offer and can reinforce your brand recognition. Lastly, collaborations can also help you reach a wider audience. Whether through local collaborations or bigger influencer campaigns, collaborations can widen your reach, putting you in front of new, committed audiences.

Bouncing off during the consideration stage

Just as guests found your hotel during their research, they likely came across your competitors as well. Now, they’re going back and forth, comparing options. This is the consideration stage. At this point, potential guests are aware of your hotel and are actively weighing their options by looking at factors like location, amenities, reviews, and pricing.

Standing out during this stage is crucial. And in the online world, the first step to doing that is by having a truly eye-catching website. A common issue here is high bounce rates or short visit durations. This could be due to slow loading times, confusing navigation, or unengaging content. Your goal should be to offer a digital experience that mirrors the quality of staying at your hotel.

The world is digital. It’s simply a bad look to have a sluggish website. Plus, you need to catch guests’ attention from the moment they land on your page. Ensure your website is user-friendly with quick load times and straightforward navigation. Provide detailed information about your property, rooms, amenities, and services. Additionally, showcasing guest reviews and testimonials can build trust and credibility. Engaging content like virtual tours, high-quality images, and comprehensive descriptions can help potential guests envision their stay. By optimising your website’s speed and simplifying navigation with clear menus and calls to action, you can create a digital experience that reflects the quality of a stay at your hotel.

Abandonment during the intent stage

You’ve proven your worth and you’ve made it to the final set of consideration for travellers. In other words, you’ve made it to the intent stage. This is where potential guests show a clear interest in booking with you and are just steps away from making a reservation.

While you understandably can’t be everyone’s cup of tea, there’s no need to let booking slip out for no reason at all. Yet, this is a point where you might stumble upon a problem that is known all too well for hoteliers: booking engine abandonment. There are many reasons why travellers may fail to book at this stage, but as compared to the booking stage (which we’ll look at next), at this stage the reasons are tightly linked to unwanted friction.

Your guests want to book their hotel quickly and painlessly. Complicated booking forms, a lack of payment methods suitable for them and hidden fees can be the hidden culprits that are making guests gravitate towards easier options.

To make sure potential guests follow through with their bookings during the intent stage, it’s crucial to streamline the booking process. Start by reducing the number of steps and required fields. This makes the process quicker and less daunting. Offering multiple payment options can cater to a wider audience while being transparent about pricing helps build trust and reduce cart abandonment. Additionally, ensure your website and booking platform feature clear, compelling calls to action (CTAs) that guide guests towards making a reservation. Special promotions, discounts, or packages can also provide the extra incentive needed to encourage guests to finalise their booking. Together, these strategies create a smooth and welcoming booking experience.

Low conversion at the booking stage

It’s crunch time. At the booking stage, potential guests are finalising their decision and are just moments away from making a booking. This is the most crucial point, where intent should turn into a confirmed booking. However, like in the intent stage, you might face low conversion rates. Guests are ready to book, and your task is to ensure the process is seamless, secure, and efficient to avoid any last-minute drop-offs.

To build trust, focus on using secure payment gateways and prominently display security badges on your booking page. It’s also essential to optimise the booking process for mobile devices, as many travellers use smartphones and tablets to make reservations. On top of that, providing round-the-clock customer support through live chat, phone, and email, can help resolve any issues or questions that potential guests might have during the booking process. By making the booking experience as smooth, secure, and supportive as possible, you reassure guests that their personal and payment information is safe, cater to their preferences for mobile convenience, and offer immediate assistance when needed. This approach not only boosts their confidence in booking but also reduces friction, turning potential guests into confirmed bookings.

What next for your booking funnel?

Optimising your booking funnel is key to boosting direct conversions. It's important to identify where potential revenue might be slipping through the cracks. By applying the strategies we've discussed, you can start addressing issues within your booking funnel.

To make your efforts more precise, consider using specialised tools and partnering with tech providers. From using heat maps to understand user behaviour, to performing A/B tests on your pages and regularly updating website content, there are plenty of ways to boost your direct channel. Benchmarking tools can be particularly helpful, giving you an insight into how you fare against industry standards of conversion at each stage of the booking funnel. Like this, you can rest assured that your booking funnel is functioning efficiently.

By following these steps and leveraging advanced tools, you can create a more efficient booking funnel.