Maximizing Efficiency: The SiteMinder Experience - 6 Months Later

Earlier in the year, an article titled Use SiteMinder To Save Money And Earn More Revenue was published here, projecting the savings that would happen after switching a property's central reservation system (CRS). That article was mainly speculation on the fees associated with direct bookings and not having to pay for a service like GuestFolio for guest messaging. Around the same time the article was published, a boutique hotel was switched over to SiteMinder. Now, some more accurate numbers can be shared about the effect SiteMinder is having on that property.

Lower Fees - Big Time

In that article, the following table was shared to come up with an baseline to work with.

Followed by this table with an estimated cost for the same amount of bookings but using SiteMinder:

That projected difference works out to a savings of 44%. The actual savings in the last six months on the fees above is 61%!

The actual savings in the last six months on the fees above is 61%!

But, the higher fees for the SiteMinder platform also includes Guest Experience for messaging and guidebook. This boutique hotel was using GuestFolio which was charging $400/month, plus the Sabre monthly fee on top. SiteMinder combined with Guest Experience is less than GuestFolio, creating another small savings.

Booking.com

The big surprise in savings came from Booking.com.

One of the main features of SiteMinder is Demand Plus, which creates a featured link on Google searches, TripAdvisor, and Trivago. It puts the link to the hotel at the top of the listings. If you use the free link from the Google Business profile, the link appears at the very bottom of all the options.

It was not entirely clear how much of an effect adding the link to the very top of the results would have. Turns out, it's quite dramatic.

For this hotel, the Booking.com fees have dropped by 60% for the last six months. Those commission fees (18%) can really add up, so to have them essentially eliminated while maintaining the overall hotel revenues has been a real blessing.

The other side benefit to this is the hotel receives all the contact information for the guest and can keep encouraging them to book directly at the site, rather than through Google. The added savings should only grow. With Guest Experience on SiteMinder, every Booking.com reservation is sent a link to fill out their personal details. That helps pull more people away from Booking.com (or other OTAs) and gives the hotel the opportunity to have them book directly.

The other thing of note with Demand Plus occurred when reviewing their analytics page. It shows the impressions and conversion rate for each platform. Google was regularly in the 30% conversion range, while TripAdvisor was in the 10%'s, and Trivago had nearly nothing. This hotel is regularly one of the top 3 hotels in the city on TripAdvisor, so it was surprising to see the conversion rate be that much lower.

Combining the fees for reservations, commissions, and monthly fees, the overall costs over the last six months have been down nearly 40%

Combining the fees for reservations, commissions, and monthly fees, the overall costs over the last six months have been down nearly 40%, without having lost any revenues.

Switching to SiteMinder has made a lot of sense financially, and the user experience has been as expected. The only real headache was adjusting the confirmation/pre-arrival emails to look better. The email editor is in HTML, but not a WYSIWYG editor like some other platforms. Overall, I think the emails look good now, and not something that needs to be adjusted for a long time.

Any signups through Four Sides Hospitality Consulting include assistance with the transfer from one CRS to SiteMinder, and consulting time to talk about best practices with SiteMinder.