The Hotels Network’s favorite ingredients of their BenchDirect recipe for direct booking success
Discover the secret sauce of this one-of-a-kind hotel benchmarking platform
BenchDirect is The Hotels Network’s (THN) newest product innovation, and they could not be more excited about it. This brand new benchmarking platform enables hoteliers to analyze all the key metrics of direct channel performance compared to the market and competition. With over 10,000 hotels signed up in just a matter of weeks, the BenchDirect global network is surely set to keep growing!
Knowing that this interactive platform has many features to offer, THN chose to share with you their top 7 favorite ingredients from the BenchDirect recipe for direct booking success. Let’s dive into their secret sauce so you can take a sneak peek at what this one-of-a-kind hotel benchmarking tool has to offer.
Pppst…. Did you know that BenchDirect is free for hotels, forever? Be sure to request your account today and become part of THN’s fast-growing network.
A twist to traditional benchmarking
The first and most important ingredient for THN’s recipe is the entirely new spin on benchmarking that BenchDirect takes. This platform is totally different from traditional hotel benchmarking. Think of it this way. If traditional hotel benchmarking were a photo, BenchDirect would be a video. You don’t just get to see the final result of occupancy and rate comparisons; with BenchDirect, you can see every step along the booking funnel of how that result came to be. With this exciting twist, you get more insights that are much more detailed so you can actually act on them.
Dynamic competitive sets
The next secret ingredient is one of the things that really makes BenchDirect different. BenchDirect offers multiple, dynamic competitive sets. You can compare your hotel’s direct channel performance to 4 dynamic competitive sets:
- Other properties within your own brand
- Similar hotels located in the same destination
- THN’s compset - a selection of the 50 hotels most similar to yours from THN’s global network
- Custom - create your very own compset to benchmark against
Having the ability to compare your hotel to not only the hotels in your area but from around the globe allows you to set the bar high for your brand and lets you learn from the top-performing properties with a similar profile to yours.
The newest addition to RevPAR: RevDirect
Then, THN added a dash of something new. Imagine being able to track RevPAR but just for your direct channel. Well, now you can!
RevDirect is a brand new metric measuring direct booking revenue per available room so you can analyze one of the industry’s core KPIs now centered around your direct channel. This metric is a game-changer in tracking the evolution of your hotel’s direct booking performance and understanding the changes you need to make.
Keeping tabs on price disparities
When creating this recipe, there's one ingredient THN knew they couldn’t leave out. For them, being able to benchmark price disparities was a key part of getting the dish just right!
If you detect that your hotel has more price disparities than your compsets, this is probably affecting your website conversion rate. You can use the analytics to identify the OTAs causing the issue, understand your performance in specific source markets and detect the device where the disparities are showing. This way, you can take the appropriate actions to regain your market share.
Seeing into the future
Wouldn’t you love to know about trends and stay ahead of the game? THN thought so, and so they dropped in a crystal ball. BenchDirect collects data not only based on bookings but also on searches, so it can provide you with insights about future demand at your hotel compared to the market.
If you want to know which are the most popular stay dates being searched by visitors to your website, BenchDirect can show you when peaks of demand are happening so you can review your pricing and availability and make sure your campaigns target those dates to encourage more bookings.
Visuals to suit everyone’s tastes
Are you more of a charts or tables person? THN added a little pinch of creativity and flexibility so that within each BenchDirect section, you can choose the way you want to view the data. In the “chart” display, you’ll see a series of graphics including Bar Charts, Boxplots, Timelines, and even the distribution by Stay dates. You also have the option to download the entire page or just a specific chart or table in a PDF or CSV format.
A box plot graph is THN’s personal favorite. Its handy design visually shows how the data values are spread out, providing you with more details about the range and distribution of data in 4 different quartiles. By looking at the colored bars in the box plot, you can see clearly where your property sits compared to the distribution of the hotels within the compsets.
Be in the know with Revenue per visitor
Last but not least, THN felt an extra hint of revenue insights was key. Did you know you can filter BenchDirect data to better understand Revenue per visitor for different segments?
Based on these insights, you can optimize your offers by only displaying discounts to those markets or devices that really need an extra incentive to book, helping to save on marketing spend and increase net revenue. Being able to drill down to this level of detail will help you make better decisions at a granular that strengthen your direct channel strategy.
Craving to know more about THN’s secret sauce and recipe for direct booking success? Good news, they’re ready to spill the beans... Find out everything you need to know or sign up now to join their global network of hotels using BenchDirect. They can’t wait to see you start supercharging your direct channel strategy!
About The Hotels Network
The Hotels Network is an inventive technology company working with over 20,000 hotels around the globe. Boasting an international team of specialists with deep expertise in hospitality, product design and consumer marketing, the company offers clients a full-stack growth platform to power their direct channel. By leveraging a series of integrated tools and analytics, hotel brands can attract, engage and convert guests throughout the user journey.
In addition to price comparison, reviews summary, and a suite of personalization options, THN's Direct AI Suite is deeply integrated in their platform, from predictive analytics to generative AI. Predictive Personalization uses machine learning to predict user behavior and automatically tailor messaging and offers for each user. BenchDirect's benchmarking tool provides unmatched competitive data for the direct channel. Recent innovations include KITT, an AI-powered receptionist, and Loyalty Lite, a seamless guest login tool for personalized booking experiences.
THN is proud to have been recognized for the company's product innovations, rapid growth, and unique workplace culture for the second year in a row, most recently named the Best Direct Booking Tool for 2024 in the prestigious HotelTechAwards.
For more information about THN, visit https://thehotelsnetwork.com/en or contact [email protected].
