4 ways events enhance UI for booking + hotel platforms
The most powerful tool platforms provide for hoteliers is event data, which powers the ability to accurately predict levels of demand for their hotel rooms. Knowing when and where to expect an influx in reservations enables hoteliers to:
Optimize dynamic pricing: Factoring events into forecast models enables hoteliers to accurately anticipate incoming demand and change prices to capitalize on it.
Inform lodging partners: Surface locally relevant events to lodging partners so they can capitalize on recovering demand, or notify hotel partners when significant events in their area are scheduled, cancelled, and postponed.
Personalize local trip planning: Events provide a strategic opportunity to offer trip planning value to consumers beyond the ability to book hotels and flights, and capture a new dimension of interest.
Drive higher site engagement: Add relevant event insights to website landing pages to keep users on your site longer. Eliminate the need for users to seek elsewhere for events while planning out their itinerary.
Enhance targeted outbound promotion: Event data (what’s driving demand), when married with flight search data (directional demand origin), will help outbound marketing teams run targeted promotions at the right time.
Enable search and sort by relevance: Events are a key demand signal for building out improved location scores, search, and sort intelligence.
But this list only scratches the surface of what event data can do for these platforms. Here are four ways event data can be integrated by hospitality, accommodation, short-term rental, and booking platforms to enhance UI.
4 ways to enhance booking platform UI with event data
1. Display engaging booking alerts
Integrating event data enables platforms to surface events near the locations customers are searching for. This way, on search result pages you can show more than availability– show the events that may impact availability, and their travel plans.
You can also display booking alerts on the homepage for returning customers to remind them of relevant events taking place at their travel destination.
Whether you’re inspiring FOMO (fear of missing out) or explaining a different than expected price, this insight compels users to book faster with a combination of occupancy metrics and upcoming events.
2. Recommend travel dates based on upcoming events
Event categories such as severe weather, public holidays, school breaks, and sports events all impact demand in different ways. Recommend travel dates based on these events and the predicted demand they will generate.
For example, severe flooding or a blizzard may drive occupancy lower as people avoid traveling for safety's sake. While a major sports event will drive demand for rooms higher due to fans traveling in for the big game.
Integrate verified event data to give hoteliers and their customers insight into when impactful events will drive demand and prices up. Event data also unlocks the ability to display relevant upcoming events throughout the digital experience– for example, within the booking calendar:
3. Provide mapping so users can easily visualize event impact
Offer your users a map view of events that illustrates each event’s impact by volume to see the impact these events have on their hotels. This granularity gives hotel partners the ability to strategically price their rooms and adjust staffing schedules ahead of time.
4. Enable new upsell opportunities
Events can be integrated into post-purchase emails to upsell the customer on new hotel bookings in locations based on events that are relevant to them. Recommend additional travel dates in order to get customers thinking about their next getaway– all based on events they like.
Join the ranks of leading hospitality platforms integrating demand intelligence
The accommodation industry uses event data to drive higher conversions and enrich the booking experience for end users. PredictHQ aggregates, verifies, and enriches events across 30,000 cities globally to support demand insights for platforms serving hoteliers anywhere in the world.
Hospitality platforms such as hotel revenue management platform OTA Insight use our event data to scale up and enable more accurate, continuous forecasting for hoteliers across the globe.
"The pandemic was a wake up call for any hotels relying on previous year’s data. We knew we had an opportunity to be an indispensable tool for recovery strategies but we had to make sure we had the best data about all kinds of factors, including upcoming events."
-Kristof Elst, CTO, OTA Insight
See what intelligent event data can do for your platform. Claim your free 14-day trial to get started.
