"Billboard effect" (billboards are giant posters found along roads aimed at boosting brand awareness) is defined as the benefits that hotel businesses derive from their presence on online platforms such as Booking, Expedia, etc.
According to this principle, collaborating with online travel agents, even involving a limited number of rooms, entails certain side benefits for an accommodation, as they inadvertently redirect a portion of users to the corporate website.
Indeed, a study by Cornell, which coined this term, showed that individual hotels observed an increase of up to 26% in direct bookings (note: the study is from 2009, so some may question it today), mainly through their own website – the increase for popular hotels was slightly lower.
This can be understood by following the typical path a user takes when booking accommodation online. After entering appropriate keywords into the search engine (e.g., hotels Malaga), the user usually follows these steps:
Searches for hotels on large sites (Booking, TripAdvisor, etc.), which always appear at the top (these companies are among the biggest advertisers on Google) and gather a large number of hotels, thus facilitating research.
Once they identify 3-4 hotels that meet their needs, they check the reviews. Many read as many as 6-12 reviews for each hotel, focusing on the most recent and the negative ones. Many form an impression based on how the business responds to these reviews.
They visit the official sites of these hotels. Over 90% of those booking hotels online visit the corporate site to search for more information (e.g., prices, photos, offers, videos).
They decide whether to make a direct booking through the site or through third parties (e.g., returning to Booking). They often call to negotiate (e.g., "I found you cheaper on Booking, why should I book from you?").
As we can see, through collaboration, even if minimal, with an online travel agent (OTA), the relatively "unknown" website of the small hotel (which would be difficult for someone to find in the first place, especially if it appeared quite low in the search engine for relevant keywords) now becomes visible to a wider audience, ensuring visibility, which can translate into an increase in direct bookings without much effort.
Additionally, the hotel automatically gains points as it collaborates with one or more "reliable" partners – especially when the OTAs host many positive reviews of the said accommodation.
Therefore, we should ensure to maintain a "balanced" relationship with OTAs, which in no case should be a dependent relationship. This, of course, will work out if the website is highly functional and user-friendly, the booking engine is reliable, and, most importantly, the front desk knows (in other words, is trained) how to convert a potential customer who communicates by phone into a customer.
It is also worth noting that the billboard effect can improve the ranking of the corporate website on search engines. In other words, Google rewards websites that show exponential metrics around their brand with better ranking. That is, the more searches you have, the better your SEO will be.
Lastly, another positive aspect of the billboard effect is the increase in repeat customers. Even if guests have booked through Booking, the hotel could, since having their data and having experienced an unforgettable experience, lure them to return (and, why not, share their positive disposition to others).