Best Practices for Ensuring Rate Parity in Your Hotel’s Online Presence

Picture of Nikita

Nikita

Hotel rate parity is vital to your hotel's success, especially in the competitive
online arena.

Rate parity is the same as price parity, and it involves ensuring that the room
rates you offer are consistent across all your online distribution channels. This
means that guests pay the same amount whether they book directly with you on
your website or with an online travel agency (OTA) or other distribution partner. 

OTA ́S (1)

Rate parity includes room rates, availability, booking policies, and terms and
conditions. The purpose of rate or price parity is to level the playing field and
avoid price discrepancies. It also enhances brand and customer loyalty.

In this article, we look at the best practices for ensuring rate parity in your hotel’s
online presence and across all online platforms

Conduct Regular Audits

You want to regularly monitor not only your rates but also the rates OTAs are offering. If your hotels are similar, you should also look at your competitors' rates to ensure they are in line with yours. 

The goal is always to provide the best value to your customers. You want to ensure your rates are in line with all online channels, and you can see any parity issues by conducting regular audits. 

In addition, it’s important to regularly audit rates to identify any discrepancies or breaches in rate parity agreements. Consider assigning team members to regular audits to ensure issues get addressed promptly. Acting quickly minimizes any adverse effects on your hotel brand and reinforces your commitment to rate parity. 

Use Rate Parity Software

Consider using a channel manager. It can help you manage your rates and availability across all online channels in real-time. This saves you time because you don’t have to log in to multiple channels to update your room rates. 

This dramatically helps you risk any rate disparities. By efficiently managing your rates, you improve trust in your hotel brand. 

Channel managers not only help you manage rate parity, but they also help you maintain flexible occupancy rate management. For example, a channel manager can raise your prices on all online platforms if you are almost sold out. 

A channel manager also helps you do bulk price updates. Some highly-regarded rate parity software solutions for hotels include RateGain, RateTiger, RoomRaccoon, and Revinate. These tools offer robust features for maintaining consistent pricing across various online channels, ensuring competitive and equitable rates.

Staying in Line with OTAs

To maintain rate parity, it’s a good idea to stay in line with OTAs. You don’t want them offering exclusive promotions or specials through their channels only. 

This creates disparity and may cause issues with your other distribution partners. It’s also confusing to your website visitors, who may find you offering a higher rate than OTAs. 

Create relationships with the OTAs and make sure everyone is providing the same consistent rates and benefits. This levels the playing field and ensures your hotel brand looks trustworthy in the marketplace. 

Additionally, metasearch platforms like Google Hotels and Tripadvisor can help your hotel appear alongside OTAs in search results, offering a direct booking option. This levels the playing field and ensures potential guests trust your rates while giving you an edge over OTAs.

Stay On Top of Changes

Rate parity in online distribution is constantly evolving. New players may enter the market, and regulations may change. 

Keep up with the latest market trends, tech advancements, and legal regulations. This will help you be nimble and adjust your strategies accordingly.

Consistent Pricing + Customer Satisfaction

Happy customers come back and stay with you again, and they also tell all their friends and family about their great experience. 

However, that experience begins with the booking process rather than when customers arrive at your hotel. Offering consistent pricing on the internet can prevent customer dissatisfaction. 

For example, if your website offers one price, an OTA offers another price, and yet another channel offers a different price, you may end up with unhappy customers or lose direct business. 

By maintaining rate parity, you increase customer satisfaction and your overall retention rate. Don’t forget that unhappy customers leave negative reviews, which ultimately hurts your bookings. Put the focus on the customer and their satisfaction when working on rate parity.

Final Thoughts on Rate Parity

Maintaining rate parity is critical to your online presence and hotel pricing strategy. 

Leverage technology, establish clear contracts, and foster transparent communication with your distribution partners for the best success. 

Finally, rate parity protects your hotel’s brand and your revenue. It creates a fair market environment that benefits your guests and helps ensure guest satisfaction.

If you are a hotelier investigating the best practices for ensuring rate parity, please get in touch with us for more advice or assistance.