The Listrak Index currently shows that over the last six months, a massive 78% of online shopping carts have been abandoned, with millions of pounds worth of purchases left sitting in baskets. However, Business Insider has some good news: it estimates that around 63% of those abandoned carts could well be salvageable. If your hotel is seeing large amounts of abandoned bookings, it could be time to reassess your hotel marketing strategies and see if there’s a way you can lure those customers back. Here’s how:



Make booking and basket easily accessible – not poles apart

Some websites force you to visit an external booking agent to complete a reservation at a hotel, while others make it impossible to edit or amend your booking once you’ve progressed past a certain point. For customers who need to change the dates of their stay, or who want to compare different room types, this could actually cause them to abandon their cart entirely. Make sure there’s scope for plenty of back and forth between your site, your shopping basket and the checkout process, to accommodate for people changing their minds or needing to change their booking before they confirm.

Be upfront about additional costs

No one likes getting to the final page of the checkout process, only to discover there’s an additional booking charge or service fee that hasn’t been mentioned until this point. For some, it’s enough to cause them to abandon the purchase altogether, having not factored this additional fee into their overall budget for their hotel stay. Make sure you’re clear and upfront about additional costs, taxes or fees – don’t leave it until the last second to sneak them in.

Don’t force account creation

If your customers are booking in a hurry, they don’t want to get held up by a lengthy registration process that involves entering personal details, confirming their email address and receiving a password by text. Give users the option to check out as a guest if they need to. Many customers will see the benefit of signing up as a user, but it’s important not to force them down this route. As a side note, try to ensure your registration process is not overly complicated. Only ask for what you need to complete the booking! Any extra information can be added by the customer through feedback surveys or in their account settings.

Optimise page load times

Research by Tnooz found that 32% of bookings on mobile devices are abandoned because of slow loading times – and just last year, 52% of all travel bookings (including accommodation and air travel) were made on mobile devices. Make sure your website is fully optimised for speedy page load times, whether it’s being viewed on a desktop, tablet or smartphone – it will have a positive effect on your cart abandonment figures.

Need to reassess your hotel marketing strategies to reduce abandoned bookings? Contact the Digital Hotelier team today!