What is Hopper?
Hopper is a travel booking app that uses an algorithm to predict future flight and hotel prices. It helps travellers find the best deals and save money on their trips. Hopper is known for its user-friendly interface and its ability to predict price fluctuations, making it a popular choice for savvy travellers.
This blog will explore all the ins and outs of hopper and how you can work with it at your hotel.
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Hopper reviews: Is Hopper legit for hotels?
You might be wondering, is Hopper a legitimate and reliable platform for booking hotels? The answer is yes, Hopper is a reputable and growing travel booking platform. It’s gaining popularity amongst travellers and has become a leading force in the travel industry, especially in North America. In fact, it’s one of the fastest growing OTAs in the US.
However, just like any travel booking platform, Hopper has its pros and cons. It’s important to understand how it works from a hotel’s perspective before making a decision about partnering with them.
Pros:
- Reaching a new audience: Hopper has a growing user base, particularly among price-conscious travellers, giving you access to a potential new customer pool.
- Increased visibility: Listing on Hopper can boost your hotel’s visibility, especially if you offer competitive rates. This could lead to more bookings and increased revenue.
- Potential for higher occupancy: Hopper’s focus on last-minute deals and price-sensitive travellers can help fill empty rooms and increase your occupancy rates.
- Direct booking flexibility: Hopper allows hotels to offer hourly or monthly bookings, expanding your potential customer base beyond traditional overnight stays.
- Streamlined booking process: The Hopper app’s user-friendly interface and streamlined booking process can make it easy for travellers to book your hotel.
For more proof, here’s an insight from our latest edition of Hotel Booking Trends:
“As more, particularly domestic travellers, hunted down accommodation deals via Canadian-based Hopper, the online marketplace made its anticipated Top 12 debut in 2023.”
Cons:
- Commission fees: Hopper takes a commission on each booking, which can cut into your profits. Make sure to factor this into your pricing strategy.
- Potential for lower rates: Hopper’s pricing model often focuses on discounted rates, which can mean accepting lower rates than you would on other channels.
- Limited control over guest communication: Hopper may handle some guest communication, potentially limiting your direct interaction with them.
- Marketing and promotion: You’ll need to actively market and promote your hotel on Hopper to attract guests. It’s not simply a passive channel.
- Competition: You’ll be competing with other hotels on Hopper for bookings. It’s important to stand out with competitive rates, unique offerings, and strong marketing efforts.
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Why should your hotel be available on Hopper?
Hopper can be a valuable channel for your hotel, giving you access to a new audience of price-conscious travellers. Here’s why:
- Reach a wider audience: Hopper has a large user base, giving your hotel access to a new audience of potential guests.
- Increase visibility: By listing on Hopper, you can increase your hotel’s visibility and attract more bookings.
- Boost revenue: Hopper’s user base is known for its price sensitivity, meaning they are more likely to book hotels that offer competitive rates.
How to list on Hopper hotels
Listing your hotel on Hopper is a relatively straightforward process. Here are the steps:
- Register your property: Create an account on the Hopper Partner Central platform and submit your hotel’s information, including photos, descriptions, and amenities.
- Offer booking types: Specify the types of bookings you offer, such as standard rooms, suites, and different bed types, as well as hourly bookings, monthly bookings, or both.
- Diversify your offerings: Consider adding special packages or deals to attract more guests, such as breakfast packages or stay-and-play deals.
- Choose payment methods: Decide which payment methods you accept, such as credit cards and debit cards. You can also accept payment through Stayhopper.
Hopper extranet login for hotels
Once your hotel is listed on Hopper, you can manage your listings using the Hopper extranet. This platform allows you to update rates, availability, and other important information. The Hopper extranet also provides insights into your hotel’s performance, so you can make data-driven decisions about your pricing and marketing strategies.
While the Hopper extranet is useful, it only gives you the ability to manage your Hopper listings – not your entire inventory. This is a problem if, like most hotels, you have listings spread out across a vast number of different OTAs, as well as your own direct booking calendar. Without lining up your listing availability, prices, amenities, and so on, you can end up with inconsistent, inaccurate, and ultimately unappealing listings on not just Hopper, but all of your inventory.
That’s where channel managers like the one provided by SiteMinder come in. With SiteMinder, you can manage all your listings across your entire inventory, no matter where it is, from a single platform. This means automated pricing updates (including dynamic pricing and mobile pricing), automated availability changes (no more double bookings!), and automated changes to room descriptions and amenities (no more worries around advertising something that’s no longer available).
Rate parity, availability management, and much more, all through SiteMinder. No need for OTA extranet login juggling.