What are some crucial reasons as to why directly booking is more advantageous than OTAs?
- You can save money.
- You have to ability to personalize your rooms.
- Booking directly allows more flexibility.
- You get to experience a virtual hotel tour.
- You get more incentives when you book directly.
Traveling can be an incredibly daunting feat that comes with certain amounts of stress. When journeying to the Philippines, whether for business or pleasure, it can certainly be a tricky task trying to find the best place to stay. There are many choices and online approaches in order to find a suitable hotel in the Philippines.
Booking one of I’M Hotel’s serviced apartments in Manila is definitely an ideal option, but the question arises: is it better to book directly or through an OTA (Online Travel Agency)?
Truth be told, there are many factors that go into both. But speaking objectively, direct booking provides more advantages as opposed to OTAs. There are many things to keep in mind, but the overall fact remains that direct booking can simply be more fruitful just by virtue of hands-on inquiry.
Below are the main benefits that you can get from direct booking as opposed to through OTAs:
Direct Booking Saves You Money
If you are skeptical about this initial point, it is completely reasonable. Based on the cold and hard figures of past statistics, the rates of hotels have been higher than those offered by travel agencies. But major players in the hospitality industry have well adapted to this situation by offering best-rate guarantees to guests that book direct. This simply entails that many hotels provide several discounts and great deals for guests that book directly.
Direct Booking Offers More Personalized Rooms
Each and every traveler is different; in the same sense that every human being is unique in his or her own special way. The main sentiment that this section is pertaining to is that each person has his or her own set of specified needs and preferences. When you book with a travel agency, it is not likely that they can accommodate and fit your special requests when you book.
Travel agencies essentially and primarily act as hotel room ‘vendors’ and not the actual proprietors. This speaks volumes about to which extent they can cater to your necessary requests. Booking directly with a hotel gives you the opportunity to speak directly with the hotel’s managing staff, which means your needs are sure to be handled in the most hospitable of manners.
Direct Booking Provides More Flexibility
One of the advantages of booking with an online travel agency is that it is an incredible convenience that they are a simple call away from cancellation due to your travel plans changing. However, this comes with a literal price: most of these travel agencies impose large penalty fines that you need to pay as the cancellation fee.
Direct booking can indeed cost you more, but you are not necessarily required to make a deposit, you can change your booking dates and even cancel your booking without being charged a penalty fee (as long as it is on or before the actual check-in date).
Without a doubt, booking through an online travel agency has its great advantages, but it can certainly be restraining and tightly-knit in terms of policy. Direct booking offers a wide range of benefits and a stress-free ease of flexibility.
Virtual Hotel Tours
One of the most overlooked advantages of direct booking is the availability of an extensive digital look at the hotel, the facilities, and all the amenities they offer. Booking directly through the hotel’s main website gives you clearer and more tangible impressions of what it would be like to stay in the actual premises.
The web design photos, videos, and written descriptions can certainly offer a sense of how you feel your stay would turn out. Also, being able to communicate and speak directly with hotel staff can have all of your most minute inquiries answered and settled.
A Variety of Incentives
Most of the time, booking directly can offer several incentives that online travel agency bookers are not entitled to. Complimentary dining offers, unlimited gym usage, spa visits, and tons of free gifts are in store for the valued patronage of direct bookers.
I’M Hotel is the hotel in Makati that embodies refined taste. This zeal for high-quality reflects in the charming and distinctly accommodating nature of their service. The first-rate service lines are top notch when it comes to luxuriously pampering you to your heart’s desire. The highly-reputable ONSEN Spa and The Common Good: Food Playground are living testaments to how flawlessly I’M Hotel takes care of guests that book direct.
Key Takeaway
With the advent of the digital age and rapid advances in the convenience that online travel agencies can provide, there are definitely many innovations that pose a threat to traditional direct booking. But I’M Hotel is one of the most excellent luxury hotels in Metro Manila, and booking with their high-quality service assures that you have an easy, luxurious, and stress-free time securing one of the many serviced apartments in Manila.
