TRADE SECRETS THAT BOOKING SITES DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW

I’m going to let you in on a little secret that big Booking Sites try very hard to disguise from you!

 

 

Did you know that calling an accommodation establishment directly will almost certainly guarantee a significantly cheaper rate?

Booking sites such as Booking.com and Expedia (and the Search engines that operate on their behalf to allow you to search and compare the best rates such as Wotif.com or HotelsCombined) are all provided rates by the individual accommodation establishment?

This means that quite simply, a Hotel, Resort or Motel NEED to provide these entities with rates so they are actually able to sell rooms on our behalf.

I’m sure this all makes sense so I’ll move on to the next and most important point. These entities charge a commission (and rightly so) for us to provide our rates on their site and gain exposure to a large amount of potential guests. 

…now, stick with me here as I do have a point!

 

 

Selling rooms through our own website, we don’t need to allow for a commission being taken from that price – however, we do with these Booking Sites.  The majority of establishments will adjust rates to account for this commission and therefore increase the nightly rate (or tariff) just to those Booking Sites to sell.  This would account for the rate being slightly higher than booking directly via the accommodation establishments website – go ahead, test it out!

You may not also know that the big Booking Sites are overseas owned – another reason to look directly at your chosen place once you’ve used the big sites to research.

These sites base their promotion around the fact that they can find you ‘last minute’ and ‘best available’ deals and you will very quickly see a lower price for exactly the same thing. They have lovely big marketing budgets to boot so can convince much of the population that they have the best rates – simply not the case.

 Bottom line is – always BOOK DIRECT TO SAVE!

I’m sure you have all seen that statement somewhere on your travels and it couldn’t be more true!  In this day and age, after a particularly rough COVID period – small business needs all the help they can get so what are you waiting for?!  Pick up the phone or jump on the direct website today and support Aussie business.

Just one more handy tip from us at Amalfi Resort Busselton – happy travels!