Top Online Travel Agencies: Compared and Rated

OTA channels open up new access opportunities for hotels and accommodation services. However, each channel has its distinct characteristics with distinct benefits. How do you know which OTA channel you should choose?

Let’s review the criteria for comparison and build a case for these agencies.

OTA comparison criteria

There are three criteria that you absolutely must learn before choosing OTA channels.

Commission and fee

When cooperating with OTAs, people are most interested in the commission fee that OTA channels collect on each booking. You need to know the commission rate to calculate the amount your hotel gathers each time you book. This is especially important because it also relates to your pricing strategy, which directly affects how you compete with your competitors.

Target customer

Your hotel will have a target audience. You should only target one or a few customers. When choosing the right OTA channel, you need to make sure that your target customers and the target customers of an OTA channel are similar, so you can maximize benefits.

Geographic and demographic

It is easy to see that OTA channels are present in many parts of the world, but each OTA channel only focuses on certain regions. If you want tourists from Germany to travel to Vietnam to book a room at your hotel, you should probably use the popular OTA channels in Europe.

Top OTAs compared and rated.

Best OTA worldwide

Each channel has its characteristics. The OTA market is very large. However, Booking.com remains the major player in the industry, owning the largest market share in the world, a tool many travelers use when traveling, regardless of their destination.

Users have more choices in Booking than all other OTA channels, with over 28 million listings across 200 countries and territories. As a result, Booking is often the most popular OTA channel in the countries where it appears. Not only that, this OTA channel offers lower-than-average rates for hotels and flights.

Best OTA in Asia

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If your hotel focuses on the Asian market, you should choose Agoda. Agoda, established in Thailand and with its current headquarters in Singapore, is a very popular OTA channel in the Asian market.

Asian countries. Although the number of places listed above comes from many parts of the world, Agoda has built its reputation for offering the best prices and the widest selection of hotels and rentals in Singapore. As a result, this is an OTA channel that many people trust when traveling to Asia.

Best OTA in Europe

Besides Booking, HRS Group is a very popular European channel. If you visit the HRS website, it is easy to see that this OTA channel is focused on European countries. The most popular destinations listed are Berlin, Munich, Cologne, Hamburg, Paris and Amsterdam.

The company provides information on leading hotels with office rental services or commercial hotels for business travelers. In particular, the target audience of HRS is guests with business trips instead of leisure travel. You will need to be aware of this if you intend to choose HRS.

Best OTA for lowest fee and commission cut

Commissions are fees that hotels pay for OTA channels. Most OTA channels will charge a 15-20% commission for each booking. Because it directly affects your revenue, you need to consider this factor.

Airbnb is an OTA channel you should consider if you want to reduce your commission costs. This OTA channel offers 2 forms of commission payment:

• Split fee between host and guest: Host pays 3% fee, may be higher in special cases; Guest pays 14.2%
• Paid hosting only: In this case, the host will pay a 14-16% fee.

Compared to OTA channels, Airbnb's fee policy is slightly better, however, Airbnb's customers are single travelers.

Things to consider when choosing an OTA

Besides the above information, there are a few other things that you need to pay attention to:

Do you have access to customer contact information before they arrive, or are you only communicating with them through an OTA channel?

Is the channel's cancellation rate high? Some tracks give customers flexibility in canceling reservations. While attractive to customers, this results in hotel management costs if many rooms are canceled at the last minute.

Depending on your strategy, your hotel can choose one or all or focus more on specific OTA channels. Thank you for reading the article, and comment down below if you have any questions.