Airline APIs can help hotels secure more direct revenues

Hotels will be aware that, dollar for dollar, it is easier to get additional sales from existing customers than it is to acquire new ones.

NB This is a viewpoint by Mystifly.

And a recent report noted that add-ons are a great way to upsell and cross-sell to guests during the reservations process.

This is precisely one of the reasons that airlines today have worked with hotels and successfully created opaque fares which apply only when bundled with a room booking. Airlines offering "flights + hotels" have become the norm and most airlines offer this to their customers.

Leveraging this model of ancillary services, airlines are driving new revenue streams, creating a differentiation for themselves in a highly commoditized market while reinforcing brand equity.

Unfortunately, hotels have not been able to capitalize fully on this opportunity, as the best air deals are always from the guests' departure point rather than the hotel's location which is the point of arrival.

Identifying a hotel's most loyal guests, or creating closed user groups, are effective ways to segment a hotel’s customer base.

Offering special promotions to specific groups of people is a great way to directly influence a traveller's planning process.

We predict that 2016 will belong to those who can bring in more opportunities to increase earnings from existing customers.

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Source: Monetate[/caption]

Increase direct conversion – more customers with your hotel marketplace

Hotels do not like the idea of discounting but when direct discounts are compared to the margins that hotels share with third parties, it makes great sense to use discounts to drive demand direct.

With the ability to combine air, it’s not about the hotels offering a discount but more it is the hotel's ability to take advantage of deep airlines discounts to offer guests a package price that will help maintain healthy margins.

With a globally consolidated airfare API, hotels can either choose the right set of airline partners that match with the hotel brand expectations or leverage the entire gamut of airlines that is on offer.

Hotels can further chose to offer coach or premium cabin class or just combine their product with whatever the airlines offer. It’s all about hotels choosing airline partners in the same way that airlines chose their hotel partners - combining product strengths to deliver better value including an attractive price

Mystifly’s OnePoint API is one example of an airline API which hotels can access to upsell flights to guests. The API platform covers over 900 airlines with point of sale fares from 70+ countries and thereby combining the strength of source and destination products. This enables hotels to create private travel deals that translate into more loyal guests.