Question For Webmasters

[cmsally]

Has anyone had good or bad experiences with hotel booking affiliate sites.

I have a couple of websites and have linked up to 2 affiliates, I either find it is very difficult to trace or quantify bookings or in the other case there are many bookings none of which seem to get confirmed. Considering the average confirmation rate is about 1 in 10 for every reservation this means a lot of potential income is going down the drain. I would be interested to hear of other peoples experiences.

[cdnvic]

Has anyone had good or bad experiences with hotel booking affiliate sites.

I have a couple of websites and have linked up to 2 affiliates, I either find it is very difficult to trace or quantify bookings or in the other case there are many bookings none of which seem to get confirmed. Considering the average confirmation rate is about 1 in 10 for every reservation this means a lot of potential income is going down the drain. I would be interested to hear of other peoples experiences.

If you're talking about the one I think you are, I've tested them a few times to be sure the bookings were being reported and it was all legit. The thing is, they advertise the rock bottom rate which is not always available. For that reason I find the conversion rate in terms of % of inquiries is much better in the low seasons when those prices are more likely to be available.

[onethailand]

As a long time affiliate in another industry, I can tell you that this is a difficult business. Tracking sometimes slips for no reason, or cookies are incorrectly set, or tags not correctly passed... there are times when I'd just want to give up. Fortunately, I didn't, and the business got sold.

I would genuinely like to hear your opinions on travel affiliation because that is one of the things I'm focusing on now, although I actually have to look at both sides since I am also an affiliate partner and I will be offering an affiliate program for the over 1K hotels in my own database (when we launch, that is).

[cmsally]

My opinions on the 2 sites which a lot of people are probably familiar with , are that one is good in that you get full enquiry details and booking status. The other is really difficult to follow so am not even sure of the booking rate as its just too much of a pain to check statistics and they are not really clear.

So although I do prefer one site a booking acceptance rate of approx 1 in 10 is just way too low - I agree in the low season it is better at maybe around 1 in 5. But still it seems very low. I have also noticed that there is a check box for notification of alternative hotels with availability and I have sneaking suspicion this is done without any commission offered to the partner. In fact it has definitley happened twice, that I know of.

So I am left with wondering is it really to my advantage to be offering this service. as basically I could employ someone to be handling all hotel bookings and still make a profit after giving them a generous salary.

[cdnvic]

If you do I may be your first affiliate

[cmsally]

As a long time affiliate in another industry, I can tell you that this is a difficult business. Tracking sometimes slips for no reason, or cookies are incorrectly set, or tags not correctly passed... there are times when I'd just want to give up. Fortunately, I didn't, and the business got sold.

I would genuinely like to hear your opinions on travel affiliation because that is one of the things I'm focusing on now, although I actually have to look at both sides since I am also an affiliate partner and I will be offering an affiliate program for the over 1K hotels in my own database (when we launch, that is).

I maybe your second affiliate partner signing up

[onethailand]

LOL. You would be second and third... I had someone PM me like minutes after I made the first post Unfortunately, it's still going to be a bit before all the kinks are worked out, and then some further testing before I can make it available on an affiliate basis. But we'll see...

cmsally, I would be very interested in knowing exactly which two (I know 6) you dealt with. Each one is vastly different from the next. I have contracts with two for custom integration (and both have problems of their own, yet they are two of the biggest worldwide) and have seen the affiliate offerings of another two (and not been that impressed).

Suffice it to say that I thought I could do vastly better than what was out there... but getting there has been far from easy...

[george]

Please put me on the list as well! admin(at)thaivisa.com

Cheers

George

[cmsally]

Please put me on the list as well! admin(at)thaivisa.com

Cheers

George

Seems like Thai Visa are having the same problems as the rest of us!

I was wondering actually how the booking sites are organising their bookings. There is a fairly long window for confirmation so I would imagine everything is done by real people putting through the bookings, rather than some automatic online confirmation system they have set up with each hotel. If this is the fact then the hotels must be putting in quotas for allocation to the big booking sites, because I have checked availability at some hotels at the same time people have booked through the affiliate.

Hotel tells me there is availability but then booking request through affiliate is turned down. This is what is really making me think I should seriously be restructuring my system somewhere!

[onethailand]

I don't want to get into too much detail at the moment, as TV's current partner is also one of mine. I will say, however, that everything I've had the chance to inspect the engine of, has turned out to be a bunch of spare parts cobbled together and held in place with scotch tape.

For sites which require confirmation, literally someone in the office calls the hotel, checks for availability, sends through a booking order and waits for it to come back BEFORE the client can be told his booking is confirmed. And of course over a weekend this is much worse.

The problem in Thailand is that many hotels don't have standard reservations systems, especially ones with an online interface - whilst others actually have an online booking interface which was rushed into service without any forethought.

Yes, the current system works on allotment. It is again a very barebones system but currently it's the only reasonable way for an online booking system to have instant confirmation. I will have to go this way as well once we can prove to the hotels that we will drive them business - but what I really want to do is link up all the hotel reservations systems online myself, something which has not yet been done and would take quite some time and effort.

I would appreciate hearing any ideas, suggestions, comparisons, etc. of the travel sites you have worked with - that will allow me to hopefully build a better wheel... hopefully my experience as an affiliate in a highly competitive industry will allow me to avoid the pitfalls as well.