Opportunities API
Almost 80% of properties on Booking.com told us that they would like us to give them advice on how to grow their revenue by telling them what guests are looking for and where they’re lagging behind in comparison to their competitors.
And this is exactly what we did.
We developed an intuitive page called the “Opportunity Centre” where we pinpoint all the areas where a Property can perform better and which particular actions they can take to improve. We call these actions “Opportunities”. An algorithm helps us prioritise these opportunities in order of importance to help properties know where to take action first.
With the Opportunities API you can retrieve and manage Booking.com opportunities and display them to properties directly in your system.
What's an opportunity?
Here are some examples of advice and opportunities that your customers have appreciated:
-
Simple reminders such as uploading high resolution photos of their rooms, to improve their conversion rate
- Market intelligence such as upcoming high-priority dates, where we see demand rising but the property is missing inventory and so won’t be visible in search results
-
Suggestions for missing rate plans that will attract particular customers that they’re not getting now, such as business rates or single occupancy rates
-
Opportunity to boost their ranking and conversion by joining programs such as Genius and Preferred when they become eligible
-
Simple steps they can take to reduce cancellations, one of the biggest pain points for their net revenue
How do opportunities impact properties' performance?
Turn your properties’ success into benefits. ‘Opportunities’ are tailored tips on how to improve your properties’ performance. Here’s a few examples of the impact of opportunities:
-
Business rate. Guests that book a business rate are 50% less likely to cancel and 60% more likely to be repeat guests. They also spend more at the property on average.
-
Preferred Partner Programme. Preferred properties get up to 65% more page views, and up to 35% more bookings.
-
Genius Partner Programme. On average, Genius properties see a 7% increase in bookings when they join the programme.
-
Automatic replies with messaging templates. Our research shows that implementing this opportunity can save up to 15% of a property’s operational time.
We’ve selected 3 key steps in the partner journey where properties can improve their performance:
Conversion
To increase properties' occupancy and improve their conversion, they need to be competitive in their market and attractive to potential guests. However, every guest and every market are unique, so the preferences and dynamics of each change over time.
Therefore, we suggest that properties regularly check their price quality score, the flexibility of their policies, guest reviews, promotions, property page score and inventory to make sure they’re providing guests with the right offering at the right time.
Cancellation
Cancellations can be a real pain-point, and we understand the impact it can have on our partners.
Cancellations vary globally; there are market dynamics and there are property dynamics. What might be a big problem in one region may not be a problem at all in another.
We show opportunities based on individual property characteristics that might help mitigate cancellations.
Ranking
When we talk about ranking, we’re referring to the order in which we display available accommodation in guests’ search results.
We sort these results based on what’s most relevant to guests’ particular preferences, taking into account their past search behaviour, specific market dynamics and properties’ overall performance on our website.
This makes it easier to match guests’ needs with the right kind of accommodation, and helps you attract guests who want to book your kind of property.
Why are we offering an API solution for opportunities?
Offering personalised advice and market intelligence on your platform can be a unique differentiator for your business and boost the success of your existing and prospective customers.
Our Beta testing and working on the Opportunities API with Connectivity Partners like you, showed us that your platform can definitely reinforce results. You can make a real difference in the success of your customers and position yourself as a true partner to their business.
Efficiency
We know that not all of your customers use our extranet all the time. Your platform is where your customers run their business every single day.
This is the best place to reach them for actions they can take to improve their performance instead of limiting important alerts and advice only to our extranet.
Results
We know that particularly complex actions, such as setting inventory, rates and property content updates need to happen on your platform. We saw that when we brought this type of advice to Connectivity partner platforms, results improved because the alerts were close to where your customers take action.
Benefits for your properties
-
New in 2020: Quickly identify upcoming stay-dates which are in high-demand in your area, and make sure you have enough availability on Booking.com for these dates.
-
Visibility to data-driven performance advice to improve business performance directly in the interface where properties operate
-
Advice designed to boost bookings and revenue, reduce cancellations and streamline operations
-
Quicker and easier implementation directly from your interface or on Booking.com extranet via redirect function
Benefits for you
-
Be the go-to provider by offering the best commercial advice and service to boost your property's overall performance
-
Reduced workload, as you will no longer need to action opportunities in the Partner Portal when using the Opportunities API
-
Access to extra features that we specifically developed for Connectivity provider platforms
-
Points in the Connectivity Partner Programme when integrating the API and when your properties implement opportunities
What can you do with the API?
With the valuable input of Connectivity partners like you that integrated it on their platforms, we improved the Opportunities API and enriched it with extra features that are giving you a variety of functions for your platform.
Existing features that we have offered to date:
-
Fetch all available opportunities for a property.
-
Ability to implement or dismiss an opportunity, as the property already does on the Booking.com extranet.
6 unique new features that we have added:
-
Fetch all opportunities available on Booking.com and their details (e.g. opportunity IDs).
-
Fetch all customers eligible for a particular opportunity, knowing its opportunity ID.
-
Automated opportunity ranking based on which opportunities have the highest potential business impact along with category they refer to.
-
Ability to fetch date-level inventory opportunities
-
Ability to implement particular opportunities for all your customers in one go.
-
Fetch newly added opportunities, as soon as your properties become eligible.
What are date-level inventory opportunities and how are they useful?
Date-level inventory opportunities are a new feature of the enhanced Opportunities API. This feature highlights upcoming stay dates that your property should add or optimise their inventory for.
This might be because the property has no inventory for a high-priority date when we see demand rising. Or they might have some inventory, but it’s completely blocked by restrictions and therefore not visible in search results.
These opportunities are fundamentally different from other Booking.com opportunities because they are:
- Recurring (with potentially many eligible opportunities for each property)
- Generated at room level and not at property level
- Highly time-sensitive (eligibility can change from one day to the next)
As these opportunities are inventory-related, you need to implement them on your platform. Our guidelines will help you implement them in a way that highlights their urgency and lets your properties easily act on them.
Benefits for you
Developing the date-level inventory opportunities feature of the Opportunities API allows you to:
- Empower your properties with tailored recommendations based on real-time demand
- Strengthen your platform with the capability of handling recurring, time-sensitive advice
- Improve your customers’ experience by making this advice available to them directly in their inventory management interface
Benefits for your properties
Being able to see and act on these opportunities on your platform allows your properties to:
- Optimise inventory to ensure they capture upcoming demand
- Ensure that they’re present in the most relevant search results on Booking.com
- Optimise their overall supply on our platform and get more bookings over time
- Quickly and effectively act on recurring date-level inventory opportunities directly from your platform
Get started with date-level inventory opportunities
What other Connectivity Partners say about the Opportunities API
“We advise hotels on the best ways to receive more reservations, besides providing them with software tools. So the Opportunities API is really interesting for us, as it provides valuable information for both us and the hotels.”
“Our hotels don't go into Booking.com’s extranet unless they have to, because they manage their inventory from our CRS. Therefore they miss many ‘advanced’ features like the opportunities, that could be very helpful for them. By making the opportunities directly visible on our extranet that problem is solved and our Account Manager can help them better.”
How to get started with the Opportunities API?