#BookDirect Grows 25% in 2020

Episode. I wanted to say a massive thank you to Wheelhouse. Who are the sponsors of this podcast? You need to go check them out. It's one of the most important tools you will get for your business in 2021. Dynamic pricing, pricing software, tools, whatever you want to call it, it is going to be so essential in 2021 and beyond. The boostly.co.uk forward/wheel. If you enter Boostly 75. If you ever want to upgrade, then you get the first month 75 off everybody right now for a very limited time free account and a free listing on there. You can link it up to your PMS, link it up to Airbnb, TripAdvisor and it will give you all the data that you need. Wheelhouse is faster, it's better, it's easier to understand and most importantly, it'll make you more money. Please, whatever you do, go and check them out. Say thank you for sponsoring this podcast. So, without further ado, let's get on with the show. My name is Mark Simpson and I give hosts all over the world just like you, the tools, the tactics, the training, but most importantly, the confidence to go and increase your direct bookings and not having to rely on the OTAs to do so. And I've got some good news. Direct bookings are on the rise. This is a fantastic new stat that has come out. 40% of 2020 bookings can be attributed to the direct channel. This represents a 25 increase over the previous year and a share of bookings that is larger than vrbo, Expedia and booking combined, which is fantastic. Now, what this means is it is so important now, moving forward that you need to have your own website. People are learning about direct bookings thanks to the IPO and all the investigations into the OTAS and Panorama, BBC Panorama, et cetera, and Dick Smith over in Australia bringing attention to this. The public now know that the marketing spiel, the DOTA spin, where they get the best rates and all of that is not true. They do not get that they can actually get the same benefits, cancellation policies when they book direct. And this is why we have to keep spreading the message. And it all begins and it ends with your website. I'm talking about it and I'm writing it right now in my chapter in my book called the Book Direct Playbook. It's going to be out November 2021, booster.co.uk book to join the Book Direct pre release squad. But it's so important, if you haven't got a website, please, please, please make it one of your 2021 goals to do it doesn't have to even be with Boostly, even though we do website design, just go and get one done. Because the power of direct bookings is on the rise. There are people like Damien Sheridan of the Book Direct Network who is bringing together trainers all over the world to talk about it and how to spread the word. Myself, my big goal is to help 1 million hosts in 25 years because by doing that, if I can train one to increase their diary bookings and then they educate their guests on why they should book direct, then we're going to do some serious damage to the OTAs here because people will start to realize, they will start to contact us more. In fact, 2020 and the pandemic has shown one thing the more that the OTAs disabled the ability to book via their platforms. Well, guess what, this is why this stat is here. Because they then go onto Google, the guest goes on to Google and runs a Google search and that's why they're coming to us directly. And if you hadn't have your own website, if you just relied on one channel to bring in your bookings, then when they ran that search they were going in a loop, going in a loop and they couldn't find you so they went to somebody else. So this is why my message in this video direct bookings are on the up. Make sure you get your own website whatever you do in 2021. And if you want to speak to me, you want to speak to Boostie about how we can help a full money back guarantee if it doesn't get you return on your direct bookings. We've got over 4, 450 websites live. We are the market leaders in our industry. We help everybody from hotels to guest houses to glamp sites, one property, 100 property. We've even got 400 properties on our on our books right now. So please do get in touch booster.co.uk website or go to boostlywebsite.com I will be back for another lesson, another podcast, another video tomorrow. But for now thank you so much for tuning in. If this is the first time that you've done so, please make sure that you share this training, audio, video, blog, whatever it may be like, subscribe, tell a friend and I shall see you tomorrow.