Having high quality images of your hotel online is crucial to driving more hotel bookings. Sounds pretty straight forward, right? But with the busy day-to-day schedule of hoteliers, it’s often a task that gets pushed to the bottom of their to-do lists.
However, this shouldn’t be the case. In 2014, research conducted by MIT’s Brain and Cognitive Sciences department suggested that the brain processes images in as little as 13 milliseconds. This means that consumers can identify your hotel’s images far quicker than when they blink, which takes about 200 milliseconds. Still think high res hotel images aren’t important?
As a hotel representation company, we want your hotel to be shown in the best possible light. This includes ensuring that the images you upload to the GDS are of the highest quality. That’s why at HotelREZ we not only source high quality photos from all new accommodation providers that join our portfolio, but also perform routine image quality audits.
Here are three ways that high quality images can boost your hotel’s online presence:
Improve the booking experience for customers
High quality photos are not just a ‘nice to have’ – they vastly improve the travel shopping experience for customers, leading to more bookings, and thus increasing your average occupancy rate.
This not only holds true for the images on your own website, but also for those that you share through an online travel agency (OTA). A recent study found that 75% of consumers booking through a hotel’s own website first came across them on an OTA. This is what’s known as ‘The Billboard Effect.’ As a result, you want to make sure the booking experience is as good as it can be. Having excellent image quality across all possible consumer touchpoints is a great place to start.
Receive more engagement
With so many accommodation options for consumers to choose from, standing out from the crowd can be increasingly challenging. Having the right high quality images will catch the booker’s attention, and even increase the engagement you receive as a result. According to a 2017 Trivago webinar, profiles with high quality photos receive 63% more clicks than profiles with low quality or no photos. Additionally, a recent TripAdvisor study emphasised the importance of quality and quantity: hotels with 20 or more high quality images tend to receive 150% more traveller engagement.
Increase hotel bookings
While improving customer experience and receiving more traveller engagement is valuable, we understand that what you’re really looking for with optimised imagery is more hotel bookings. What if we told you that hotels with at least one high quality photo have a 225% more likelihood of receiving a booking enquiry?
At HotelREZ, we use media auditing tools and custom image quality reports to ensure all of our members’ photos are optimised to be shared on the GDS. We also use Leonardo’s Enterprise platform, VScape, to maintain correct categorisation on third-party booking channels and GDSs that increase revenue. By setting high standards for image quality, we’re giving our hotels an advantage in the competitive travel market.
Improve your hotel’s image quality with HotelREZ
We currently provide quality distribution, representation, marketing and consultancy services to more than 1,000 hotels in over 40 countries. As part of our Hotel Marketing services, we not only ensure that all of your hotel images are of the highest quality, but also help determine which types of images will work best for your hotel.
If you want to find out more about how we help hotels stay independent, compete worldwide and optimise their marketing strategies, have a look at our services or get in touch today.