Dear WuBookers, when we talk about technological processes related to the hotel industry, we often mention the term “metasearch engines” or “metasearchers”. If you don’t know what they are yet, this is the right article to learn more about them, understand how they work, and how you can use them for your business strategy.
What are metasearchers: a definition
Metasearchers (or alternatively, metasearch engines) are information aggregators related to the tourism sector. These are search platforms that scan other online sites to collect all offers and availability of rooms (or flights, for example) in one place. In the case of hospitality properties, metasearch engines are price comparison systems for the various solutions offered.
This is possible because metasearchers are able to simultaneously check both the OTA portals and the sites of the hotel establishments, returning the results in a way that offers a comprehensive and easy-to-access list.
The main metasearchers to know about
Metasearch engines are numerous and surely you have heard of them or even used them in your research. To understand even better what they are and how they work, let’s take a few practical examples, dwelling on the main ones.
Google Travel
Google Travel is Google’s metasearch and in recent years has gained considerable visibility, catching up with the most historic metasearchers. Organized into several tabs, it returns information about flights, hotels, and vacation rentals for the desired destination.
For tourist facilities it also reports the list of services offered and the score obtained from guest reviews. A convenient and immediate tool for those who want to have a complete overview.
Trivago
Trivago is undoubtedly one of the best known and most reliable Metasearchers. It works in much the same way as Google, but Trivago specialises in accommodations. Like other Metasearch engines, it works with actual booking sites to obtain information on availability and prices and respond to user searches by displaying the most convenient options.
Tripadvisor
Known primarily as a collector of opinions on restaurants and venues, Tripadvisor also boasts an impressive database of hotels and vacation rentals, which it offers with the same logic as the other metasearchers. Again, guest reviews are shown along with the property’s services, features, and images.
Difference between metasearch and OTA
As you may have guessed from reading so far, OTA and metasearch are not the same thing.
There are essentially 3 differences, which concern the creation of the databases, the features, and the sources of income.
1. Data collection.
In order to create a searchable database of results for users, metasearchers aggregate available information by taking it from both hotel sites and OTAs, and propose a single list where room availability and rates are shown.
OTAs, on the other hand, show within their platform availability, rates and prices only of the establishments that have decided to sell the accommodations in that portal.
Thus, on a meta-site you will be able to find solutions from an OTA, while the opposite does not happen.
2. Features.
You may have noticed that, when talking about meta engines, we have never referred to reservations. This is because, unlike OTAs, portals such as Google, Trivago, and Tripadvisor do not allow users to complete an order.
Upon clicking on an offer, the user is redirected to the site that presented that offer (be it an agency or the hotel site) to proceed with the purchase.
On OTAs, on the other hand, the entire process takes place within the platform. As a result, the revenue models underlying the two are also different.
3. Sources of revenue
For OTAs, it’s very simple: portals such as Expedia, Booking.com, and Airbnb (to name just the most popular ones) take a percentage of reservations made through their site, the infamous commission fees.
Meta engines also incur costs: creating your profile and publishing your content is often free, but to be visible and get incoming users to your site (and potentially direct reservations), metasearchers offer several options:
- Cost per click (CPC) received on the link to the site;
- Cost per impression (CPI);
- Cost of commission on reservation received.
The earnings logic of metasearchers is very similar to modern advertising strategies (such as that of Google Hotel Ads). These platforms also allow you to set a number of parameters, including the maximum spending limit (on a monthly or daily basis) and the countries in which you want to appear.
The advantages of metasearchers
By proposing results from various platforms, metasearch engines sometimes make it obvious how the same room is offered at a different price, depending on the site hosting the proposal. This comes as an advantage to the property, because – if it decides to subscribe to the metasearch – it will be able to build an ad-hoc offer that is more affordable than the one intended for OTAs, thus incentivizing guests to make a direct purchase, instead of one intermediated by the agency.
Appearing in meta engines searches brings several benefits:
- although it is not a zero-cost option, it turns out to be a very competitive investment compared to the traditional presence on OTAs;
- the ability to direct users to packages offered on one’s own site, structured so that they are cheaper than others. These will also be more profitable because conversion costs will be optimized;
- metasearchers allow for very in-depth and segmented analysis, useful for understanding market trends. This provides the opportunity to refine advertising campaigns;
- careful planning of investments will allow the structure to always be present in the most popular researches according to the time of year, ensuring continuous visibility over the long term.
So all that remains is to figure out how to appear in the metasearch results.
How to appear in the metasearch results
It goes without saying that, given their convenience and affordability, metasearch engines are increasingly becoming one of the first steps that potential customers take to narrow down and refine their search. So, it’s important to make sure you show up on these channels.
However, each platform has specific needs to read and give relevance to the offers on the network. If the larger OTA platforms have teams of technicians dedicated to this data collection, for those who already have a hotel to look after this effort would be virtually impossible. As a result, software dedicated to enabling properties’ websites to communicate with many of these engines has been developed, ensuring that their packages appear alongside those of the major players in the online market.
More generally, the actions to be taken to use metasearch with the aim of increasing direct reservations are:
- equip yourself with a good channel manager for hotels to automatically manage and synchronize your rates and availability across multiple channels, reducing the risk of manual error;
- choose a booking engine (direct booking management software) that is reliable and easy to use, even for buyers, who will thus be facilitated;
- respond to guest reviews, including negative ones because, as we have seen, they also contribute to the hotel’s image within meta engines.
Zak for direct sales on metasearch.
Zak is WuBook’s PMS for hotels that supports you in all or most of these operations. Of course, we can’t answer reviews for you but our all-in-one management is integrated with: Channel Manager for distribution to various third-party channels; Booking Engine performing for direct sales; Detailed statistics to monitor reservations and facility performance.
In addition, Zak is already connected with Google and Trivago, and is a Certified Premium Partner of TripAdvisor. This means that the connection with these platforms can be activated at any time without obstacles.
Metasearchers are essential visibility and sales channels nowadays: if you haven’t already done so, now is the time to develop a strategy to effectively leverage them.