Treat OTAs like Dating Sites

Ask anyone single today, who has been single some other time at least a decade ago, and they’ll surely admit that online dating sites have changed the dating game forever. Nowadays, the quasi-successful online daters can line up dates for every night of the week, and the truly successful have already found true love.

This type of success takes investment, dedication, and setting and exceeding expectations.  Many single people stay fit and active, caring about their looks and how they present themselves, they also have to put in the long hours of juggling many conversations to get to a point to score the dates, and that’s just to get the opportunity to meet in person.

Hotels and hostels alike should treat the OTAs (Hostelworld, Hostelbookers, Booking.com, Expedia, Gomio, HostelsClub, HostelTimes, etc) as dating sites, where the end goal is to get a chance to have their customers meet them in person, where they can “Wow” them. It is all about being desirable enough to attract them, and then meeting, and even better, exceeding their expectation.

So, just like on the dating sites, the dialogue starts when the customer first glances at your profile. These are questions you must ask yourself repeatedly:

• What image are you portraying?
• How is your attitude?
• Are you warm and inviting?
• What will they expect when they arrive?
• Why should they chose me over the rest?

Again, you must do this repeatedly. When things change, even slightly, your “profiles” should be updated accordingly. Consider how not updating your profile after the following will affect your success on a dating site:

• You age
• You cut or dye your hair significantly
• You gain or lose a lot of weight
• You had some physique altering surgery
• You advance in your career
• You just got back from travelling the world

Some of these can be seen as shallow, but face it, looks matter when it comes to attraction. If you renovated, even just painted. Update the photos! New logo or entrance sign, update! New fun activities, update! New policies on arrival and departure, update! Now you are starting to get it. It is all about setting expectations, meeting them, and exceeding them.

If you do this right, you can even have the possibility of attracting a certain type of guest, as would a bearded hipster attract a certain type of woman on a dating site. This is great. It means you are succeeding at branding yourself. You can cater your facilities, service, and the content on the cites to favor them.

Basically, the end goal is the same: just as match.com is matching people with one another, the OTAs essentially are matching you with the customers. When you work your profiles right, you will attract the right customer, who will appreciate you for who you are, and you’ll both be happily ever after as they leave good reviews and tell their friends how awesome you are.