Own the bookings on your TripAdvisor page
More and more bookings are being made on TripAdvisor, we have some information and friendly advice to help ensure you are not losing out. In the last week we have seen a 400% increase in TripAdvisor Instant Bookings. If you use the freetobook direct connection these are now available at 12% commission.
All across the world Instant Booking is becoming more widely available, you will have noticed a change to your TripAdvisor page. Now visitors to your page are asked for their dates of stay and your availability only shows if you’re connected, if not, TripAdvisor lists availability of nearby properties.
Getting a direct connection to Instant Booking is easy and will save you commission. To take part you just need a freetobook account and a TripAdvisor account.
Login to your TripAdvisor account and switch on the connection to freetobook, it’s as simple as that.
Six advantages of a direct TripAdvisor connection:
1) Lower commission, you can pay as little as 12%
2) You only pay commission on completed bookings
3) No upfront costs, no signup costs, no fees from freetobook
4) You receive all of the customer’s direct details, including email address
5) Simple to do, just login to TripAdvisor and connect
6) You don’t need a Business Listing to get these TripAdvisor bookings
The connection simple, just activate it in your TripAdvisor account to enable direct bookings on your TripAdvisor page.
Freetobook has always believed in great technology for direct bookings as well as offering the highest quality connections to world’s biggest sources of bookings. We all know some providers are not universally popular with accommodation owners but it remains a fact that they have access to the world’s online bookers. We try to advantage our customers (property owners) by offering these connections at better value. It is certainly better to get a booking through TripAdvisor at 12% than one through another big source at higher commission!
This year a freetobook customer was awarded TripAdvisor’s “Best B&B in the World,” yes, number 1 out of 300,ooo or more listed on their site. The Millgate in Masham is certainly a fantastic B&B and for us what stands out is their great attitude to using new technology to maximise sales and free up time to get on with taking care of customers. See what the Millgate has to say about getting to the top on TripAdvisor.
To become the best B&B in the world you certainly need to be fabulous but you also need to have fantastic reviews and as many of them as possible. Here again freetobook can help you rise up on the TripAdvisor rankings. A Review Express connection on your freetobook account can automate review requests for your customers and dramatically increase the number of reviews you receive. Find out more about Review Express.
Most of freetobook’s benefits are free with a few optional charged services, find a complete list of our charges on our pricing page, what does freetobook cost ?
View our helpful TripAdvisor Instant Booking video for a quick recap of how to increase bookings on your TripAdvisor page, click play below.
I thought I had signed up for this with Tripadvisor, and told them I was with Freetobook, however guests booking direct with us have told us that they had attempted to book via Tripadvisor but were unable to fulfill the reservation. As per my usual experience with Tripadvisor, there is zero customer service so I have no contact number to query it. Can you advise?
I share your frustration. TripAdvisor are typically Americain, all noise and no substance. Almost impossible to actually talk to anyone.
Hi Geraldine
Try this number 020 3318 5019 it took me ages to find it. When I last used it they are only open 10am – 3pm.
Mark
Does it work? i don’t know, let’s see.
I have the same experience. This does not work and paying a fortune to Tripadvisor for something that DOES NOT WORK is, in my mind, a pointless waste of money. Tripadvisor has let down our business on too many occasions. I’m only there because one has to be these days.
Does the 12% include VAT? Or is it 12% plus VAT?
Obviously as a small non-vatable business my costs increase by 20% if it needs to be added on.
There is no VAT to add because TripAdvisor are a US company no VAT is added.
Mmm. One advantage we already had with TA over other sites was that it linked directly with our booking engine (FTB) at no extra cost – we simply paid the cost per click which I think will work out cheaper, and automatically sent the request via PayPal for a deposit. Presumably this option is going to be either removed or pushed down the order so it appears less attractive. Still, if it brings down prices of other booking sites then that may be one advantage. On balance we’d better go for it I suppose.
You will still be able to do cost per click there are no chnages. You can keep doing it that way, I know it works for some of our customers, it can be more cost effective.
We have been on TripAdvisor Instant Booking for 2 months now. Just one booking. We are connected with Freetobook.
There is higher volume in UK and US properties, they are expanding Instant Booking world-wide but it is taking time so not all areas will get bookings.
I don’t want guests who book directly from my website to have to pay the extra 12% to cover the tripadvisor commission and also I HATE TripAdvisor’s lack of person to person support, so unless someone can suggest a way around this, it’s a thumbs down from me.
The 12% commission is for bookings that are made on TripAdvisor’s website. Many big corporations find it difficult to give a person to person service I know how you feel.
When it says ” as little as 12%” what does that actually mean!? Do I pay 12% or not!?
You can opt to pay 12% or 15% for bookings which take place on TripAdvisors website. At 12% it is less than most of the major online travel agents fees.
I would prefer our Guests to only every book direct with us using FreetoBook as the fees are of course reasonable and we get full details of the Guests and there is no OTA trying to sell another Venue or remarket to our Guests
I have grave concerns with deepening my business relationships with any OTA (online travel agent). Every review I get on trip advisor pushes my own website further back in the search results. I now encourage my customers to use the review tool provided by Freetobook which is great and is all automated.
I used to be with Booking.com – my experience with them as a customer was dreadful and if there was a review site or OTA’s they wouldn’t get 1 star from me. They fed my accommodation details to lots of other sites (I didn’t give my express permission for that but it was probably hidden in the small print) this had the effect of again pushing my own website appearance further down the list. Big OTA’s are paying megabucks for priority listings and are stitching up the accommodation market by stealth, in my opinion.
Trip advisor used to be a review site and have tried different ways to increase their revenue. They have been very clever in collecting a precious commodity – Information. They have psychologically influenced customers to leave reviews who get rewarded with different travellers’ status’ and tie in business owners through reward mechanisms and fear of loss of business and the valuable reviews they have banked. They have now come up with Instant Bookings at only 12% – fantastic only just cheaper than the competition and it is 12% just for now! I have just tried to book a holiday of my own in Spain and it has been impossible to contact them direct so I have gone through Trip Advisor and booked it – I will let the owner know how difficult it was to contact them when I get to the other end.
Once the OTA’s have sucked the majority in their commission WILL increase – in fact I am thinking of buying shares in them – it is such a fantastic business model.
When I left Booking.com it took them 3 months of phone calls and emails to remove my listing. It is not in their interest to do so as a banner across my listing send enquirers to my competition who do have a live listing. A year on I noticed my property on a site high up in a search listing (with a company I had not heard of – Letsbookhotel.com) posing as a private company with a registered address. It was telling searchers (me) that I did not have availability when I did. It then referred me to other properties. The only way to contact them was via an online form. I put the address into google search and guess who the site shares offices with? – Booking.com!!
Beware of how deeply you go with OTA’s folks – remember farmers and major supermarkets – we are already halfway down the slippery slope!
The problem with Tripadvisor is they seem to have lost their focus. They take money directly from properties for business listings supposedly so you can sell direct. But then display Booking.com and other OTA links far more prominently than the property’s links. They then display their own OTA link more prominently than that. The 12% sounds less than Booking.com etc. BUT you have to pay for a business listing as well. They are certainly covering all eventualities, but having been signed up with TripConnect for six months we have yet to see a single booking, whereas Booking.com have produced nearly 300, and direct bookings are also around 300 for that period. In addition the number of reviews on Booking.com is twice that on Tripadvisor, despite the facts that 1. Booking.com is only half the business, and 2. we actively encourage Trip Advisor reviews from all guests. We find guests are using Trip Advisor less and less, and perhaps my time spent promoting and managing the reviews on Trip Advisor might better be spent elsewhere?
I take your point the buttons for booking and searching availability are bigger than the business listing links. Its a good point, all businesses should compare the sources of bookings and that includes the OTAs. That said it might not be wise to have too much reliance on a single OTA or any other source of bookings, try to diversify. Also as a correction, TripAdvisor no longer requires you to have a business listing to take part in their 12% offer. You can use Instant Booking advertising without a business listing.
Thank you for yet another excellent article!
Can you add your comments on Tripadvisor’s Instant Booking at 15%. Apparently the 15% commission setting assures Tripadvisor’s participating Hotels of being more frequently displayed on Tripadvisor ads.
Another issue not discussed above is Tripadvisor using pricing derived from a Hotel’s Freetobook prices, less Freetobook discounts/promotions, rather than using the base price on Freetobook combined with discounts/promotions only available on Tripadvisor.
You can decide to do 12% or 15% that is a your call, personally I always look for the best deal. Prices are from your freetobook rates, we are adding an upgrade so you can change the rate sent to Instant Booking.
Whilst I am not a fan of TripAdvisor, I would rather I get a direct booking from my TripAdvisor page than them being sent to Booking.com. However, I have logged into TripAdvisor, but cannot find how to connect to FreeToBook. Can anyone help?
Instant Booking is not yet available in all countries as of October 2015 it is fully active in the UK and the USA with other countries to follow. TripAdvisor will let you know when this is active for you, you will be able to switch it on in TripAdvisor, there is no need to tell us all of it is done within your TripAdvisor login.
I am signed up for this but was persuaded that I needed a business listing (minimum duration) to handle direct bookings. So I’m stuck with it until May 16!
And 12% is still high.
Paying for the TripAdvisor Business listing is well worth it if you have FTB setup, (I don’t work for them I just like the system) now that B.com also have direct bookings with TA we may well drop B.com
I am offerinf a 10% discount WHEN they book direct on my website. If they book through Trip Advisor—-They do NOT book direct on my website—–so I pay only the 12% not another 10% discount—-Is that correct???? OR–am I then paying out 22%??????
We are adding in the ability for you to change this so that you can increase the rate if you wish, upgrade coming shortly.
If you get a free listing with Holiday Lettings you get connected to tripadvisor and as well and it is only 3%.
After speaking to Tripadvisor just to confirm the details, I’ve found that I cannot use the channel manager to control availability and have no access to this through my Tripadvisor account so am afraid it’s a no go for me.
I have stopped using Trip Connect. They offer no Booking Service at all, especially if there are reservation issues. Publish inappropriate photos on their site and do not ask me what information regarding T & C’s etc to give to Guests. Hopeless in my view. Why would I pay 15/12% for a service that does no more than PPC ??
Likewise I am frustrated by Trip Advisor lack of customer service and my customers do not Review Express. Why?
If you switch Review Express on in your TripAdvisor account it should be working.