In a dog-eat-dog world, OTAs have worked hard to improve their product offerings and position in the distribution space, writes Ritesh Gupta

Not that long ago, OTAs were questioned for their ability to be useful in the early stages of the booking funnel. However, in the bid to stay on top, they have been working hard to take ownership of the whole process.

“The OTA segment has had to evolve with the industry and consumer needs and habits more than ever in the last couple of years,” admits Matthew Harris, executive general manager, Europe/ Middle East/ Americas, Wotif.com.

Let’s take a look at what the OTAs have been up to remain competitive:

·        Working towards a more intuitive search experience: Take Expedia. It has been working to understand the travellers’ abstract intent and convert this into concrete travel options. This has meant refining its search interface to understand more complicated sentences. Here is an example of how complication may arise: A search reading, ‘five nights in Rome this weekend’, is much simpler than ‘a luxury city break taking in museums and art galleries’. The key to success is the ability to understand keywords and offer destinations, activities/ itineraries that deliver on metrics such as conversion rates, as well as the average booking order value.

·        Taking on meta-search: “Any OTA worth their salt needs to have a meta-search strategy,” says Harris. After all, meta-search engines are no longer “clunky, multi-window aggregators”; they are increasingly intuitive and are becoming trusted booking platforms for consumers. So they cannot be ignored as a new way to drive revenues. “We’ve all seen the mainstream marketing of Kayak, TripAdvisor, Skyscanner, Trivago and so on over the past year,” Harris admits. Today then, OTAs must focus on commercial deals or strategic alliances with meta-search players. In a recent report, Philipp Brinkmann, CEO, tripsta.com said that with the strengthening of the meta-search category, customer loyalty and customer lifetime value gain further significance. “The customer acquisition and advertising models will be more and more integrated in the booking process providing a seamless experience for the consumer,” he says.

·        Delivering a dynamic package: “OTA’s need to diversify into all products,” says Harris. “At Wotif we have kicked off integration of our flights business into our accommodation mainstay by offering dynamic packages and this is just the beginning.” However, the same is true of flight aggregators like Webjet and Skyscanner, which are now making hotels a focal point of their model. Traditionally it was accommodation sites moving into the flight space. “This all means as an OTA with multiple brands, you need to work in unison where applicable but be completely separate in other aspects,” says Harris. While packages have been around a while, today they are a lot more dynamic and can be tailored to fit. “We have a package engine, as most do now, where you can design your own combination exactly as you like and the price adjusts accordingly,” he says.

·        Honing in on analytics and business intelligence, especially in the mobile space: The rise of mobile-only players has posed something of a threat to OTAs. In this respect, one of the biggest frontiers is data management and business intelligence; when it comes to mobile more personalised, instant data is possible. “We need to have intuitive data analytics so we know who our customers are, what they are booking and when, and where they are coming from,” says Harris.

While OTAs can unearth valuable insights from their own data, they can learn from competitors too. For example, today Hong-Kong-based last-minute hotel booking mobile app, HotelQuickly, is crafting its offers based on historical usage of the app. “We are currently doing this per market, but we are now working on bringing this to an individual user’s level,” says the 12-month-old company’s co-founder, Christian Mischler.