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Get tips to improve and differentiate your hotel listing and discover how you can use insights in Partner Central to boost your visibility in our marketplace.
April 10, 2024
Hotels Traveller experience
Your property listing sets the stage for every guest’s experience. Crafting a compelling listing is crucial for attracting guests who are the perfect fit for your property.
Think of your listing as an extension of your brand. Use it to showcase special features and set guest expectations through photos, property amenity descriptions, guest reviews, information on policies and fees, and more. A complete and appealing property listing ensures that travellers have the information they need to make booking decisions and impacts how your property shows up in search results across our travel brands.
Read on for tips to craft a compelling property listing for booking success and learn how you can access recommendations tailored to your property in Partner Central.
1. Tell a story with photos
The images that appear with your property profile are perhaps your most important marketing tool, given that they are the first impression for potentially hundreds or thousands of guests. Travellers have told us that bad photos are the number-one reason they rule out a property,¹ and your photo gallery is an excellent opportunity to tell a more holistic story of your hotel.
Make sure that you include a variety of high-quality professional and well-lit photos of your property, including rooms, amenities and other areas of interest such as your lobby or the local area, to make an emotional connection with guests, set expectations and encourage bookings.
The Papaya Playa Project in Tulum, Mexico, updated its listing to highlight the resort’s wellness amenities and four to five unique photos per room type. After adding the photos, the property saw an increase in reservations across all room categories, a 50.3% increase in average daily rate (ADR) year-on-year (YOY) and a 27.5% increase in room nights YOY.²
Use photos to highlight your property’s amenities and unique offerings.
Include multiple photos of each room type to set guest expectations.
2. Use detailed descriptions of amenities
Guests do a lot of research to find the right accommodation to meet their needs, so it’s critical that their experience at your property matches the description and information on your listing, including amenities.
Amenities help connect you with travellers who are searching for the guest experience you offer, and they are an important aspect of guest booking decisions. Around 50% of travellers said they are more likely to rule out a property with incomplete amenity descriptions,³ so creating a detailed and current list of amenities will ensure that your property listing is working hard on your behalf.
Include information about your rooms, property and details about the unique experiences you offer, such as spa information, nearby activities or child-specific toys and games. Once you’ve represented your amenities accurately, make sure you keep your listing up to date with any changes or closures.
70%
of travellers are willing to pay extra for properties that have their favourite amenities and services.⁴
Showcasing a detailed and current list of amenities will help connect you with travelers who are searching for the guest experience you offer.
3. Include points of interest
Highlighting cultural landmarks, unique activities and experiences in your local neighbourhood and surrounding areas helps travellers to better imagine their stay with you and establishes you as a local expert. Nearly 90% of guests want to see information or features of the surrounding property location.⁵
The top details they want to see include tourist sites, bars, restaurants, as well as shopping options, so create a compelling profile that appeals to traveller preferences.
4. Keep rates and inventory current
The most critical element to crafting a high-performing property listing is maintaining accurate information on rooms and rates—especially during peak periods. Keeping your availability and rates updated and competitive will help you maximise the number of bookings you capture.
Rev+, our revenue and performance insights tool, provides access to key market data for the next twelve months, in real time. You can leverage the competitive market insights in Rev+ to help you optimise your rates quickly and confidently.
Using Expedia Group’s revenue management insights leads to over US$400M in incremental value for our partners.⁶
5. Be clear about policies and fees
Policies and fees accurately set guest expectations. Make sure that you clearly state and keep up-to-date policies on topics such as cancellations, payment types, pets, checkout time and more. You should also detail any deposits and fees guests may incur as part of their stay. In most cases, this information appears in your property listing alongside information on check-in and checkout times and optional extras.
Details on policies, amenities and services are also factored in when guests filter a search for accommodation that best meet their needs. For example, if someone uses the free cancellation and pet-friendly filters and those policies align with the details in your profile, your property is likely to appear in the search results.
6. Prioritise and respond to guest reviews
Reading reviews from previous guests is an important part of travellers’ booking decisions. In fact, for hotel bookers, travel ratings and reviews were among the most important features when deciding where to book travel.⁷ Reviews build trust with potential guests, and they are one of the primary inputs for your guest experience score, which can impact your listing’s visibility and the number of bookings you receive.
Hotels with a high guest experience score may also benefit from special ‘Guests liked’ mentions in their listing. These call outs indicate elements of a stay that guests particularly enjoyed, for example, clean rooms or friendly staff, and appear below the review score on the property details page.
Guest reviews and your responses appear alongside your property profile, so providing a positive guest experience and encouraging your guests to complete reviews are critical. You should proactively respond to the reviews you receive to help set expectations with future guests and to show that you care about your guest experience. Approximately two-thirds of consumers (67%) said that when travel providers address negative reviews, it helps to alleviate their concerns.⁸
See tailored recommendations for your property
As part of the visibility performance page in Partner Central, the offer strength score assesses the attractiveness and competitiveness of your listing and alerts you to missing information, rate discrepancies and more, along with actionable recommendations to address gaps quickly and optimise your listing. These property experience insights help ensure that you’re putting your best foot forward with guests.
A higher-quality listing and better guest experience will impact your position in search results and lead to stronger performance in our marketplace. Log in to Partner Central to see insights from your guests and tailored recommendations for your property.
Log in to Partner Central
Learn what steps you can take today to strengthen your property listing and boost your visibility and performance.
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Hotels Traveller experience
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