The selection and management of different distribution channels of a hotel is one of the most important factors in the strategic decision you have to make. Choosing the right channels will do us endow the product with value for the consumer and in addition, we will create a competitive advantage for our company. To make a good selection of the channels to hire, we must take into account the following factors:
- Type of product that we market: The factors related to the product are the value we give to it, such as, for example, if it is sophisticated or not, perishable, etc. It’s important to give value to the product that we market and give it an adequate perception in order to enhance its brand image. The objective of marketing, defining this strategy, is to differentiate the product sold in the market.
- Target your audience and create specific marketing campaigns: Knowing what kind of clients we should contact gives us a great advantage when it comes to marketing our product since we focus on potential customers and markets in which we can boost sales.
- Competitive Set: It’s important to know what product our competitors offer and adapt the price of our product to the market.
- Intermediation Cost: We must know which intermediation costs we will have with each of the channels. In the decision-making process of hiring, it is essential to be able to keep the commissions low, avoiding that the costs shoot up and making the profitability higher.
Types of hotel distribution by channels
Today, we can identify different types of distribution that can be used. Here we explain some of them:
Many people think that having many distribution channels is a good option because it gives you more visibility, but it’s not. Having more distribution channels can make us lose control of the prices we distribute, due to the different commissions in each channel. This strategy is called intensive distribution and is not always the most recommended.
On the other side, the most exclusive and luxurious hotels seek to have a smaller number of distribution channels, closing too much the channels in which they market their products. One of the main consequences of this decision is that we will have less visibility, but directed our product to a more exclusive public. We call this strategy exclusive distribution.
The most appropriate strategy includes a mix of both practices, which is what is known as selective distribution. In this way, we hire channels in which you can manage more effectively the type of customer and origin you want and, thus we will give visibility to our product without losing control of internal distribution.
Finally, we can analyze everything we have discussed today, previous studies are necessary to hire new channels to choose those that best suit our hotel and, with a lower cost of intermediation, can bring us more benefits.
