DIGITAL MARKETING TACTICS & STRATEGIES FOR HOTEL INDUSTRY- TO CONVERT THIRD PARTY BUSINESS TO DIRECT CHANNEL

Abstract

Digital marketing has become one of the most important aspect for all businesses. With digital marketing the organizations are becoming more powerful in terms of “reach” or “deeper penetration” and customizing the search result as per the customer preferences. Online travel agents (OTA’s) have successfully implemented digital marketing techniques, due to which they have become one of the powerful business source in the hospitality industry. Bookings from online travel agents are increasing year on year which is directly impacting the hotels direct channel and affecting the bottom line. Questionnaire were made using the “Likert” scale to understand the purchase intention from online travel agents & survey was conducted to collect the data using the simple random sampling technique. This project will help us to understand the key things that Online travel agents were able to implement through digital marketing and identifies the gaps where these strategies can be implemented in the direct booking channels of hotels, so that de-growth on the direct channels can be arrested. Project is concluded with the recommendations that can be used for the direct booking channel so that de-growth can be arrested.