How to convince your guest to book direct

Welcome to the Boosie Podcast. My name is Mark Simpson and I've got something special for you today. So recently I was invited by Hostfully to come and do a special webinar for them and we talked about direct bookings. We went for a good hour, it was really good. And I reached out to them afterwards and saying, could I please have a copy of that? I would love to turn that hour into a couple of short episodes of the Bruce Lee podcast. And you know, I know a Hostfully well. And they said yes. So I have got a little segment of our chat to share with you.

Now.

What I love about it is that Hostfully are also sponsoring this episode. So if you're wondering who is Hostfully, then they are one that you should get on your radar. They are the market leaders for the online digital guidebooks. Please, in 2021 get a digital guidebook. The cool thing is this is free. So F R E E, we know you love the free stuff. So go to hostfully.com go get your free digital guidebook. If you ever want to upgrade and get more digital guidebooks then you do have to pay. But it's a very low cost. And if you put in Boostly 2M, you'll even get a little discount which is exclusive to team Boostly people. They also do PMS software, property management software. So if you're looking to change and you want to get a good one, they are one of the best multiple award winners. Our website that we create at Boostly links straight into Hostfully. It's fantastic. We love it, it's fun, it's really easy to use, really easy to set up and your guests will love it too. So please do go check them out and do mention that you came from Boostly because they will look you for that. So let's get on with it. You're going to go straight in and what we're going to talk about today will be something very much direct booking related. The next person that you will see will be myself. You'll have David Jacoby and you'll have Brad from Hostfully. So let's get on with the show.

So, okay, so question 2. People tend to trust the OTAs. How do I build that trust? And this is, this is really important. And the reason why the public, the general public think that it is safer and better to book the be an ota, and not only much the general public, but hosts as well is the marketing message that these OTAs promote. If you want the best example, just look at the podcast episode that Brian Chesky did with Sway, I believe the podcast was called. You can go and check it out. It was on LinkedIn. I saw Damien Sheridan talking about it on LinkedIn and it was the question that she asked, she asked directly to Brian Chesky, are you concerned that hosts are now doing the book direct? And she mentioned the book direct movement, which was fantastic. And his reiterate and his, his kickback to that was no, because that when a guest books via us, you get that protection, you get that cancellation policy, you get that, you know, you get, you get a protection on both side. Now everybody in here right now who is, who is watching this, you know that the guest is as much protected by booking with you directly as it is on any of the OTAs. The problem is, is that the OTAs spend millions and millions and they've got teams upon teams coming up with this market NPR campaign and they've spreaded it and they've worded it really well.

Now what we need to do is.

We need to fight fire with fire and we need to explain explicitly, but when a guest books review directly, you get all of the same benefits and you get more benefits and you get the same protection as you would do on an ota. Now the problem is, is that Brian Chesky is talking about this left, right and center. They spread the message you're not. So what can you do right now to amplify that trust? The easiest place to start is on your website and you can very clearly on your homepage talk about the key reasons why someone should book with you and what happens when a guest books review. The problem is when we look at our website, we try and turn it into a sales page or a glossy magazine ad. We try and have flashing buttons and we try to have these spinning images and we try to have drone video foot shots, all of that. When really at the end of the day, all the guests needs to find out is who you are, why they should book review and how they can book with you in most simplistic terms. And that's what you need to do. We're very lucky now in 2021 that there are softwares and tools and services that can help bring that trust in. The number one that stands to mind is iprac. I P R A C. You can just Google IPRAC and the company will come out and it's all about that trust. And again, I know the founder of Iprac and you can just Google his name, Chris Maughan Iprac and his story about how he created this is, is literally all around witnessing a, a guest that got stood up by a fake Airbnb listing way back in 2013-14. So if you can combine it, and I know I've seen a couple of people in the audience who use iprac, that is a great way because that, you can put that, that trust certificate on your website and it builds up the trust. The main thing is, even without all these services and tools, is just talk about it. So please, please do start talking about it, because that's the way how you will start to build that trust. The software kicks in from Super Hog and it gets the guest to take a selfie, to get facial recognition, to basically say who they say they are.

And when they do that, you as.

The host are then covered up to £1 million worth of damages.

And the cool thing is, is that you don't have to pay for this.

Service, the guest does. So they just pay a three pound service charge. And it looks just like a service charge. A service charge is, you know, anytime you use a credit card or you buy an event ticket or anything like this, they just add the service charge on. So it's a minimal service charge. You, as the host, I believe you actually get 25. No, you get 25p per time it happens. So it's like an incentive for you to use it and it gives you that coverage. I've not investigated it on a deep, deep, deep level. I've seen it on a surface level, but that's the one to me that stands out most. And I've, I, I know the guys who run it, really good guys who run it, and I think the way that they are bringing this out, I think is really exciting. That's just one, I'm sure if you speak to someone like Terry White, go on to Terry's website and please, Terry, if you're watching, put the web link in the chat. Terry's fantastic. He loves geeking out on all of this and researching every commodity and every service and tool that's available, and he'll be able to expand it and go into more. I know there's some more that are in the US that are more well known, but the one that springs to my mind straight away is Super Hog.