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Top 5 trends in online travel booking in Middle East in 2022

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Middle East is one of the first regions to recover from the pandemic. The region has been witnessing an outstanding growth in tourism. While the pandemic had hit a hard blow to this flourishing economy and there was a drastic drop in bookings, thanks to corporate demand, including meetings, incentives, conferences and events, Middle East hotels have recovered very well compared to other global destinations. Mega events like Dubai Expo 2020 and the football championship are expected to drive a major influx in demand as well as deliver a beneficial ‘halo effect’ for the surrounding markets.

The pandemic influenced everything: not just the travel business or a country’s economy but also traveller’s demand pattern. This has brought a change in people’s choice of venue, hotel bookings and travel behavior. Irrespective of experiencing a 64% decline in travel demand in 2020, Middle East is expected to bounce back to pre-pandemic levels or better by 2023.

Before seeing the trends in online travel booking in Middle East in 2022, let us have a quick glance at the top destinations in the region.

Top Tourist Places to Visit in the Middle East
Middle East has always been a tourist hub especially Dubai. We have shortlisted the best places to include in your itinerary:
• Dubai
• Abu Dhabi
• Amman
• Petra
• Istanbul
• Doha
• Riyadh
• Jeddah
• Mecca
• Medina

The Influx of Tourist to the Middle East: Back to Tourism & Business
With international borders opening and ATM Dubai taking place in the second week of May, the Middle East tourism industry is pacing up. The percentage of travellers planning their visit to Dubai and Saudi Arabia has already taken flight.

As per the World Travel and Tourism Council’s report, before the pandemic, Middle East’s travel and tourism industry’s contribution to the economy was $270 billion, i.e. 8.9% of the total economy output.

With travel restrictions slowly being removed and the world getting ready to explore the rich heritage, Middle East is all set to welcome tourists and business travellers. Saudi Arabia, the hub of oil is expected to attract business travellers from all over the world once again. The WTTC predicts a year-on-year increase of 28% in 2022 in the Middle East travel sector.

But this time the travel trends have changed and so has the online booking trends.

Top 5 Trends in Online Travel Bookings in Middle East

Escapism Travel
With “work from home” becoming the new normal and majority of the companies working on this model, the concept of “escapism travel” is flourishing. This allows people to work from anywhere they want. People are looking towards getting out of their cities and travelling to different destinations to explore new places, experience rich heritage and embrace nature while working remotely.

Combining weekend getaways with short trips to nearby destinations has increased the number of domestic travellers. Considering the uncertainties of the market and the increasing desire to travel, last minute hotel bookings are pacing up. Speaking of last minute travel plans, Google is the first stop a traveller visits. Having your hotel listed on Google increases your chance to pull-in a booking. Running an ad with special offers for last minute bookings on GHA is like icing on the top for your property.

Calling the Corporate Travellers
Middle East: the hub of business travel has started welcoming corporate travellers from all around the world. Global Business Traveller Association (GBTA) anticipates a 32% rise in corporate travel spending in 2022. Business travel is once again going to be in the spotlight this year after having outstripped leisure travel in late 2021.

While business owners are all set to explore travel opportunities at Arabian Travel Market (ATM), India remains the key-source market for GCC’s travel and tourism economy with Russia ranking to be the second-largest source market.

Corporate travellers demand for elite bookings and services. Hence, they often prefer booking directly via the hotel’s website. This is your chance to attract this high-spending audience by showcasing high-quality videos and images of your property, rooms, amenities etc. Highlighting your property in its true form with genuine details increases your chance to bring direct bookings to your table.

Accelerated Demand for Flexibility
Since pandemic nothing is sure shot. We don’t know what will happen next and how our coming days will turn out to be. In such a scenario, travellers look for flexible booking options. Travellers might extend their stay into a staycation or there can be chances to reschedule the booking or worse cancel the room bookings.

In such a scenario, both the domestic and international travellers prefer booking their stay at those hotels or properties that offer flexible booking options. Trend shows that hotels offering free cancellations and date change options in Middle East are witnessing the maximum bookings since the third quarter of 2021 and so on.

For hotels to easily manage guest bookings, modifications and cancellations from different sales channels including the brand website and integrate it directly into their PMS, they should connect to a good hotel channel manager.

Boost Your Presence with Digital Marketing
Pacing up with the demand for luxury hotels, a total of 32,621 hotel rooms are under construction in Saudi Arabia. With new hotels coming up and cut-throat competition in the market, digital marketing is one of the best ways to reach your visitors.

The trend for digitalization has made it essential for hotels to have an online presence on social channels like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and so on. Facebook groups and Instagram influencers trigger the traveller’s decision these days.

Data-driven decision making is flourishing! People tend to check hotel ratings and rankings before making any reservation. With a mobile app, you can give the customers the advantage of contactless services from bookings to payments to room service and much more. Collect post-stay reviews to build your reputation and attract new bookings.

It’s time to maximize the use of digital technology to cater to guests at your property and create a valuable reposition.

Longer Stays & Sustainability
With minimum travel instances for the past 2 years, guests are seen extending their travel plans. Being the home to the oil reserves of the world and major companies, every year Middle East welcomes a high percentage of business travellers. The desire towards exploring more and embracing the heritage of Middle East is the reason for longer stays. After all who doesn’t love beauty? Coming to prolonged stays, travellers prefer extending their stay by directly getting in touch with the hotel or from the hotel’s website.

This trend of longer sustainable stays is expected to continue flourishing in 2022 and beyond!

With the travel restrictions lifting up, the region is all set to welcome travellers from all corners of the world. This roadmap of recovery calls for digitalization and trends to deliver safe, satisfactory, and contactless service. 2022 is growing to be a promising year for the Middle East travel and tourism sector.

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How to improve your property’s listing on Airbnb

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As the hospitality industry continues to recover, hotels are seeing new travel trends and behaviour. It’s time to improve your visibility on your sales channels as that can make a direct impact on your bookings.

Here is a step-by-step guide to take you through the process of crafting and perfecting your Airbnb listing from start to finish.

Tip #1
Make your photos shine

Guests spend more time exploring photos than on any other part of the listing page. They don’t always read description, but they’ll almost certainly flip through (and study!) your pictures. Quality images help Hosts showcase their personality and style. Along with the listing title, the cover image is the first thing guests will notice in search results.

Prioritise your cover photo. Your cover photo is what appears first in search results, so make sure it’s one that catches travellers’ attention. Also adding brief captions will help guests learn important info about your space and listings with 20 or more high quality photos in general have higher conversion and occupancy on the platform.

Tip #2
Add new amenities

Remember that things you’re factoring into your pricing may not be obvious to guests. For instance, the safety and beauty of your neighbourhood may mean nothing to someone who doesn’t know your town, so be sure to mention them in your listing. Among 2021’s most searched amenities include a pet-friendly space, wi-fi, air-conditioning, washer, and TV, so make sure to list any that you offer. Many guests are looking for listings that enable them to live and work anywhere. Listening to the travelers’ needs may help increase your bookings. Give guests helpful tips to get the most from your amenities. It’s important to make sure your property is a good value for the location and amenities you offer.

Tip #3
Listing Title, Description & Property type

Try to create engaging content that helps travelers to get to know your area better. The first step to marketing your home may seem small, but it’s an important one – and that’s to name your space. You want to find a name that’s distinct, memorable, and clever. Airbnb Guidebooks let hosts put together a comprehensive list of destination recommendations and tips. Try to keep your listing details as accurate and up to date as possible. A great listing description is one of your best tools for securing bookings and setting guests’ expectations. Make sure your properties are accurately categorized. Is it a hotel room, apartment, bed and breakfast or a house?

Tip #4
Competitive nightly price

Price is one of the main factor’s guests consider when choosing where to stay. It is always up to the Hosts to decide the nightly price they charge. It’s important to make sure your space is a good value for the location and amenities you offer. When setting your nightly rate, it’s helpful to consider additional fees—like cleaning fees, extra guest fees, service fees, and local taxes—and how they’ll impact the total price your guests will pay. Market Research is must, learn how hosts near you adjust pricing seasonally, at weekends, and for special events or public holidays. Guests are hesitant to book listings with no reviews, so for new hosts, setting your price a little lower than your ideal number is a great way to attract guests.

While Airbnb marketing is an essential part of business growth, you can only go so far without the right tools on your side for property management. RateTiger offers stable and secure solutions for channel management, price intelligence, connectivity and centralised reservation management to hotels, apartments, chains as well as boutique properties globally.

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Get rewarded for your sales this summer with Booking.com

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Build a stronger season with 30% off your commission on Booking.com.

Booking.com invites eligible properties to join the Summer Commission Discount offer. This offer is the latest opportunity in the Partner Performance Investment Program, Booking.com’s initiative to invest in partners’ recovery through financial incentives. You just need to opt-in your extranet and its completely FREE!

The deadline for you to opt-in is April 30, 2022.

Here’s how it works:

The commission discount is based on sales targets. You get 30% off commission for any extra stayed room nights over your sales target, from May 13 to September 11, 2022. The nights you have already sold for this offer period count. The offer’s sales target takes local market conditions and the latest travel restrictions into account, which are important in these uncertain times.

How to join the offer:

Visit the Opportunities Page in the Booking.com extranet –
https://admin.booking.com/hotel/hoteladmin/extranet_ng/manage/commission_discount/campaign.html

• Click on Partner Commission Discount

• After reviewing the offer, click ‘Get Started’

• Fulfil the opt-in criteria in your extranet

• Click ‘Join Offer’ and you are done

How to monitor progress: Once you opt -in to the offer successfully, the initial page will turn into a site to monitor sales and savings. For any queries, please contact your Booking.com Account Manager or send a message via the extranet inbox to Booking.com. If you are looking to increase your hotel’s visibility and expand online bookings – contact us today

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Airbnb: An Attractive Solution for Accommodation Providers in 2022

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2007, San Francisco – Two hosts Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia, having problems with paying their rents, wanted to earn some extra cash. They came up with an idea where they offered visitors a place to sleep and a morning breakfast for which they charged some fee. The plan worked and since then approximately, 4 million hosts with the help of Airbnb have welcomed more than 1 billion guests across the globe.

Airbnb has never failed to make its associates feel special for being a part of them. Here is how Airbnb has walked that extra mile to help their partners be successful by driving more revenue in 2022:

1. Make strategic decisions using the performance dashboard

The new performance dashboard helps you track and compare listing performance and metrics like occupancy rate, average nightly rate and visibility. This provides you greater command over your information helping you make strategic decisions. It does not end here. The performance dashboard also provides real-time customized tips when available. With the use of this, a few clicks and you can make improvements in multiple listings, recognizing which strategy works for the business.

Only hosts using Airbnb’s professional hosting tools can use the performance dashboard.

2. Drive in Direct, Organic Traffic

Airbnb’s success came from understanding what the customers actually needed and providing them with something that would fulfil that need.

Airbnb has continuously been updating its website, adding various new features, making it more user-friendly spreading into new markets growing its business limitlessly. Airbnb knows with what intent its user visits their site from search engine, allowing hosts with successive bookings and diversifying property bookings by introducing hosts to new audiences. In Q3 2021, 90% of traffic on Airbnb was direct and organic.

3. Free Protection for Every Host

What happens if one of your guests is hurt? Or, a guest has damaged any of your belongings? Don’t worry; Airbnb’s got your back.

Cancelled bookings, cleaning costs, unexpected damages – everything has been covered under damage protection and liability insurance along with deep cleaning protection by Airbnb. Whether it is income loss due to cancelled confirmed booking, damage to guests, damage to property or belongings by guests, cleaning costs, damage to pets, when filed within 14 days of the incident, is covered under the insurance provided by Airbnb.

4. Access to Marketing Material

Airbnb offers invite-only events where they provide exclusive marketing materials available to hosts. The account management team of Airbnb helps you to understand how to optimize your revenue strategy and performance with new product insights.

Host-to-host connections offered by Airbnb helps you understand from other hosts what they are doing better to attract more guests. Airbnb also understands the importance of photos on your listing and hence helps connect you to pro photographers in your location.

Indeed, the most attractive solution for accommodation providers!

airbnb-ratetiger-api-hotel-channel-manager-blog-image

Airbnb has much more to offer. When booking from any other platform using a credit card, they might charge a fee of up to 3%. Airbnb has removed the processing fee on credit cards. Airbnb fee is deducted from the Host payout. Up to Q3 2021, Guests cancellation rate is approximately 15% on Airbnb. 75% of new listings received a booking in just 8 days and 50% of new listings received a booking in just 3 days. Where else could a host be more successful, quicker than this!

To connect to Airbnb and manage the channel through a hotel channel manager, contact RateTiger today!

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The Tomorrow of Hotel Industry – 2022

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Present-day travelers are searching for more sterling experiences when they travel! They are ready to compromise conventional formalities for a more covert relation with freedom as Freedom has become the new luxury in post-COVID situation and Hotels just can’t keep calm.
With a stronger zest for outdoor memoirs, travelers are no longer taking trips for granted, especially after days and months of postponing and saving for long-awaited trips. Hence, it is more important than before for hotels to stay updated with the newest trends in order to be at the fore of the core.

Upcoming Hotel Trends of 2022 – Not to be missed

Here are some of the upcoming hotel trends of 2022 which will not only allow hotels to score an extra goal but also maintain it in the long-run in terms of technology and sustainability.

1. Integrated PMS

Hotels are always striving to provide guests with a personalized experience. With hundreds of guests as well as numerous rooms to handle, hotels make use of the Property Management System (PMS). It allows them to manage and monitor every booking as well as guest requests, helping hoteliers give their guests the kind of experience they are looking for. By having a PMS, hoteliers can easily manage bookings, guest check-ins & checkouts, assign rooms to guests, delegate housekeeping tasks and payments.
Having an integrated cloud-based PMS will allow hotels to have a seamless inter-departmental workflow. This will help hoteliers to coordinate and automate operations across different departments serving guests better and saving a lot of time.

2. Distribution Connectivity to OTAs and Booking Engine

Now when you have an integrated PMS, it is important to link various third party sales channels and OTAs with it. When potential guests make a reservation for your property on these channels, the booking flows directly from the OTA into your PMS. You will receive detailed data of the bookings which are available on the PMS so that hotels can organize and work accordingly.
It is important to integrate a smart Booking Engine to your brand website for driving commission-free direct bookings. Distribution across all channels can be seamlessly managed through a cloud-based hotel channel manager. And by using a channel manager that integrates with your hotel PMS, you will be able to manage all booking processes centrally from one system. This will keep you always updated of inventory and occupancy status giving a clear picture of actual revenue against targeted budget.

3. Rate Shopping

You are visible to potential guests through multiple touchpoints but are you losing out on reservations in competition to the rates charged by other hotels? If so, you need to get access to real-time rate intelligence data. What rate shoppers do, just like the name suggests, it helps to shop for competitor rates across different OTAs. It not only shows the lowest available rates, but also different rate parameters and room types. This helps hotels in making informed rate strategy and pricing decisions to attract the right guests to their property.

4. Digital Marketing

Marketing hotels on digital platforms has become more important than ever before. Having an effective online presence on social media gives opportunities to interact with potential guests and attract them to your property. Not only is digital marketing vital to your online brand presence, but it can also be a key driver in helping increase direct bookings for your property. Getting your hotel’s digital marketing strategy right is crucial for your revenue goals.

5. Automated Check-in & Check-out

Imagine our hotel is sold out and the queue at the reception is extending and customers getting impatient. Would we not want a streamlined, easy to manage, less expensive and most importantly less time-consuming way out? How about automating the whole check-in and check-out process!
Using the right hotel technology will enable hotels to provide their guests with a seamless contact-less check-in and check-out experience. These tools also allow for guests to order in-room amenities and room service without calling the reception – everything can be done by clicking a few buttons.

So, what’s next for hotels?

With the world trying to return to normality, industries are still looking for ways to progress with the help of technology. With a lot of innovation happening all around, it is important for hotels to stay abreast of the new technologies and implement those that can help attract guests to their property and offer a great stay experience.
RateTiger by eRevMax is an advanced hospitality technology provider that has been developing distribution, connectivity and rate intelligence solutions for hotels since 2001. It provides hotels with security certified solutions with real-time, seamless connectivity to make online distribution smooth and easy.

Benefits of RateTiger for your hotel –

. The key USP that RateTiger brings is its user-friendly interface with real-time updates.

. RateTiger Channel ecosystem provides access to volume producing channels world-wide to help expand your brand’s visibility.

. Sell until the last available room by managing all your booking sources from a single platform.

. Explore new local channels that bring in more bookings at lower commissions.

. Increase direct bookings by integrating a hotel booking engine into your brand website.

. Leverage digital marketing to promote your direct channel for driving commission-free bookings.

. Maximize profits by utilizing the right tools that are secure and stable.

. Get access to round the clock support – available in your language at your time.

To know more about potential solutions for your property, contact us today.

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Top 5 trends in online travel booking in Middle East in 2022

How to improve your property’s listing on Airbnb

Get rewarded for your sales this summer with Booking.com

Airbnb: An Attractive Solution for Accommodation Providers in 2022

The Tomorrow of Hotel Industry – 2022

Upcoming Hotel Trends of 2022 – Not to be missed

So, what’s next for hotels?

Let RateTiger help you grow your revenue
and simplify your operations.

Distribution

Analytics

Direct Bookings

Resources

Support

Careers

Login

English

Arabic English French German Italian Spanish

Upcoming Hotel Trends of 2022 – Not to be missed

So, what’s next for hotels?

Let RateTiger help you grow your revenue and simplify your operations.

Distribution

Analytics

Direct Bookings

Resources

Let RateTiger help you grow your revenue
and simplify your operations.