Best Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) for Hotels 2024

Visiting tour and travel offices or spending hours on call with travel agents, are all concepts of the past. 

Amidst growing digitization and the rise of technology, people are relying more and more on online agencies/platforms to plan and book their travel. From research and planning to booking, travelers are self-serving all the way. 

In fact, in a survey, over a fifth of travelers said they use OTAs for trip planning and booking.

A total of $2.37 trillion were spent on global travel in 2020 and the number continues to grow in the succeeding years. Amid this upward trend in travel and tourism, Online Travel Agencies (OTA) are gaining popularity as they allow customization, are convenient to use as well as offer unique and competitive deals and prices.

Therefore, it becomes imperative for hotels to work or collaborate with preferred OTAs for better visibility and global reach. OTAs are basically one of the primary customer touchpoints that hotels need to target and engage with visitors then and there, digitally. 

This blog begins with giving our readers a better understanding of OTAs, why and how hotels can leverage these online platforms and the last part explores the best OTAs for hotels in 2024.

What are OTAs?

OTAs or Online Travel Agencies are online platforms that help travelers book their flights, hotels, car rental services, and even travel and tour packages or they can also be referred to as the third-party vendors that resell these services on behalf of others in the hospitality industry.  

It is one single platform for all hotel and travel-related bookings and is thus the digital equivalent of a physical travel agent.

The key benefits of booking through these OTAs for customers are that they get to compare prices or rates of different options, make decisions based on reviews and ratings and check the availability of multiple providers in a single interface. 

Consider Reading: Hotel Tech Trends 2024

Why and how should hotels work with OTAs?

Contemporary travelers use OTAs 50% more than they use actual hotel websites for leisure travel. Therefore, OTAs are rapidly penetrating the hospitality industry and how people interact with it. With a presence on OTAs, hotels can: 

• Increase visibility and reach new potential travelers 
• Make online marketing investments at expense of online travel agencies 
• Leverage ‘The Billboard effect’: being listed on an OTA brings more traffic to your property’s website. The reason behind this is that consumers often search on OTAs before booking direct. 
• Get free access to analysis and insights: OTAs give you free access to market data, competitive insights, traveler preferences and tools that are otherwise costly to acquire and use.

The above part talked about how hotels can benefit from an OTA presence. Let’s now see how they can work with OTAs to reap these benefits.  

Hotels, regardless of their sizes, can come into agreements to list their properties on preferred OTAs. This process involves no upfront fees to list rooms, however, a certain percentage of the total value of secured reservations/occupancies after rooms are booked goes to the OTAs.  

Hotels get the opportunity to showcase their property and luxury elements in form of amenity descriptions, photos, attractions, leisure and event spaces, etc., posted on the OTA sites.  

Moreover, these sites are secure for transactions and bookings and hotels need not worry about the authenticity of bookings.  

List of best Online Travel Agencies for hotels in 2024

1. Booking.com

One of the top OTAs in the world, Booking.com has come a long way in a short period after its introduction in 1996. Along with accommodation, this online platform allows customers to make their travel and car rental bookings too.  

Headquartered in Amsterdam, in the Netherlands, Booking.com has listings which cover close to 200 different countries around the world. With an easy interface to use, Booking.com is multilingual and is available in over 40 different languages.  

This OTA has around 82.5 million verified reviews and is highly reliable. Moreover, it drives almost half of all European online hotel bookings. 

2. Agoda

Founded in 1998, Agoda has made a special position for itself in the Asian continent; Malaysia, Taiwan, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines in particular and is pushing for other global markets. It offers over 2 million hotels, homes, resorts and hostels across the Asian continent. 

Agoda employs Market Managers, often specific for each location. These managers curate special promotions and marketing initiatives, enabling this OTA to offer some great online deals.  

Agoda’s website is available in 38 languages and around-the-clock, multilingual customer support service is provided on this platform.  

3. Expedia

The flagship brand of Expedia Group, Expedia.com is particularly popular among the North American and Asian markets. 

Operating in over 70 countries, this OTA is one of the highest-grossing travel companies globally. One can book hotels, holiday homes, B&Bs, flights, rental cars, activities and other travel services through their website.  

4. Hotelbeds

A global bedbank and B2B travel services provider, Hotelbeds has been connecting the world’s travel trade as their website puts it, for a long period now.  

Hotelbeds specializes in offering accommodations, tours and multiple other travel-linked services to travel agents, tour operators, and other hospitality industry professionals.  

It is a leading OTA and provides a wide range of choices from budget-travel hostels to luxurious 5-star hotel properties, globally.  

5. Trip.com

Earlier went by the name of Ctrip, an OTA that primarily focused on Asia. However, after the purchase of Trip.com, the OTA got a global footprint in major North American and European markets. 

This online platform has provided travelers with an extensive range of travel-related services. It has an easy-to-navigate website and a mobile application that caters to travelers’ needs and budgets.  

Trip.com is a one-stop platform for flights, hotels, car rental services, train tickets, insurance services, etc.  

6. Mr and Mrs Smith

The travel club for hotel lovers as the website says, Mr and Mrs Smith is a travel company that curates and provides access to some of the exclusive luxury hotels worldwide.  

This OTA provides hotels for every special occasion that one would want to celebrate surrounded with opulence and beauty. From planning romantic getaways to celebrating dreamy honeymoons, this online platform has options for all your whims.  

Once you opt for their services, they provide you with access to a network of lavish and lush properties with extraordinary services and experiences. These amenities include spa weekends, private villas, and unique cultural activities.  

A majority of travelers are preferring OTAs over conventional ways of planning and booking their leisure or business trips. The ease of booking from the comforts of your home or on the go, and the joy of cracking attractive deals and offers have made OTA platforms a hit among people, especially the younger generations who look for smarter ways of getting things done.  

The rising popularity of these platforms further pushes hotels to join hands with these agencies to reach the masses and higher conversion rates.  

Therefore, OTA’s are fruitful for both, travellers and hotels!

FAQs 

What are OTAs in hotel industry? 

OTA or Online Travel Agencies are the online platforms that let people book flights, hotels, cars, tours and travel packages and other travel related services, all under one roof. 

What are the disadvantages of OTA? 

Disadvantages of OTAs are as follows: 

• hidden fees or added restrictions that wouldn’t be found by booking directly with an airline or hotel but later maybe discovered or charged
• customer support is not always the best. This is especially true for the regional OTAs

Although these are some shortcomings with the OTA platforms, however, a careful and meticulously done booking would help a customer overcome them. 

How does OTA make money?

OTAs basically are distributors for hotels, airlines, and travel and tour companies that profit by taking a fee or commission for each sale. Commonly this fee or commission is around 15% of the booking.