April 11th, 2024
Turneo Experiences Platform vs. White Label Integrations
Choosing activities software at your hotel
Introduction
You’ve seen the data, you know the time has come to offer your guests experiences bookings online. Now the question becomes which technology should you use?
The technology stack at most hotels is layered, complex and creates multiple hurdles to integrating anything new. And yet, the costs of doing nothing are increasing every year. That’s why we’ve put together this handy guide to help you through the process of choosing activities software, and implementing it in a way that’s right for your hotel.
There are six key components to consider:
1. Improving Guest Satisfaction
2. Increasing Total Revenue Per Room
3. Boosting direct bookings through your hotel website
4. Ease of set-up
5. Ongoing costs and commissions
6. Operational complexity
The technology stack at most hotels is layered, complex and creates multiple hurdles to integrating anything new. And yet, the costs of doing nothing are increasing every year. That’s why we’ve put together this handy guide to help you through the process of choosing activities software, and implementing it in a way that’s right for your hotel.
There are six key components to consider:
1. Improving Guest Satisfaction
2. Increasing Total Revenue Per Room
3. Boosting direct bookings through your hotel website
4. Ease of set-up
5. Ongoing costs and commissions
6. Operational complexity
Improving guest satisfaction
With the overwhelming shift in traveler preferences, local experiences are becoming a key driver of overall guest satisfaction. In fact, vacations which include activities have an 18% higher net promoter score (NPS) on average. A key result of any implementing any activities software should be an improvement in your NPS. However, many software providers don't provide enough control and flexibility to enable you to learn and adapt your offer over time - meaning NPS improvements will be short-lived. The first key question to ask in choosing your activities software should be: how much control does it give you over your guests’ overall stay, and therefore, their satisfaction score?
White Label Integrations
Typically, white label integrations are provided by global experience platforms such as Get Your Guide. The benefit of this is that you'll immediately access a pre-defined selection of experiences, determined by their proprietary algorithm. However, you will lack the ability to change what’s sold: the selection is the same for a hostel or a five star resort. The result can be backfire in terms of guest satisfaction if there ends up being a mismatch in the service your hotel provides, and that offered by the pre-defined experience selection.
Guest Satisfaction Score: 2/5
Typically, white label integrations are provided by global experience platforms such as Get Your Guide. The benefit of this is that you'll immediately access a pre-defined selection of experiences, determined by their proprietary algorithm. However, you will lack the ability to change what’s sold: the selection is the same for a hostel or a five star resort. The result can be backfire in terms of guest satisfaction if there ends up being a mismatch in the service your hotel provides, and that offered by the pre-defined experience selection.
Guest Satisfaction Score: 2/5
Turneo Experiences Platform
With the Turneo Experiences Platform, you have a lot more control over the experiences you are selling. This means that you can differentiate from competitors more easily, and also ensure that your selection caters more specifically to your guest profile. While this may sound like a lot to take on at first, the platform also equips you with full visibility over experience performance and reviews so you quickly come to know what's working well and what elements you might want to change.
Guest Satisfaction Score: 4/5
With the Turneo Experiences Platform, you have a lot more control over the experiences you are selling. This means that you can differentiate from competitors more easily, and also ensure that your selection caters more specifically to your guest profile. While this may sound like a lot to take on at first, the platform also equips you with full visibility over experience performance and reviews so you quickly come to know what's working well and what elements you might want to change.
Guest Satisfaction Score: 4/5
Increasing Total Revenue Per Room (TRevPAR)
A successful experiences offer goes far beyond an additional ancillary revenue stream. In fact, the most sucessful activities software also directly impacts TRevPAR through two key channels. Firstly, your length of stay should increase: activities and experiences are also the number one reason why travelers choose to stay longer at a specific destination. Secondly, it presents an opportunity for guests to pay more where they see benefit: over half of travelers are willing to pay for upgrades or add-ons to improve their overall holiday experience. The next key question to ask in choosing your activities software should be to what extent does it integrate with your broader revenue management strategy.
White Label Integrations
With a white label integration, you will be selling a standardized selection of activities, and you will be selling these via a site which is not your own. As a result, you will have limited ability to use experiences as a differentiating factor for your guests (assuming at least one other hotel nearby works with the same experience platform) and you are more likely to "lose" guest spend as they book directly on the platform's own customer-facing website (i.e. a traveler books directly with Get Your Guide as opposed to on your website where they risk an additional "middle man").
Total Revenue Per Room Score: 3/5
With a white label integration, you will be selling a standardized selection of activities, and you will be selling these via a site which is not your own. As a result, you will have limited ability to use experiences as a differentiating factor for your guests (assuming at least one other hotel nearby works with the same experience platform) and you are more likely to "lose" guest spend as they book directly on the platform's own customer-facing website (i.e. a traveler books directly with Get Your Guide as opposed to on your website where they risk an additional "middle man").
Total Revenue Per Room Score: 3/5
Turneo Experiences Platform
With Turneo Experiences Platform you take on more responsibility for choosing experiences and offering them to your guests - which means you also get more of the benefit. You can truly set yourself apart from competitors with unique experiences on your website, and you can also more easily personalize your guest communications for activity-related upsell. Because the platform offers full control over your experiences offer, you are also equipped to fully revenue optimize with it.
Total Revenue Per Room Score: 4/5
With Turneo Experiences Platform you take on more responsibility for choosing experiences and offering them to your guests - which means you also get more of the benefit. You can truly set yourself apart from competitors with unique experiences on your website, and you can also more easily personalize your guest communications for activity-related upsell. Because the platform offers full control over your experiences offer, you are also equipped to fully revenue optimize with it.
Total Revenue Per Room Score: 4/5
Boosting direct bookings through your hotel website
Your hotel's ability to offer experiences can have a powerful impact on your hotel website. Firstly, it is a powerful marketing tool: when travelers search for the distinctive activities that you have to offer, your website can become a go-to destination for inspiration, information, and booking. This, inturn, drives more organic traffic to your site, expanding your online presence and improving your SEO. Secondly, it is make-or-break when it comes to hotel conversion. Solutions which enable guests to browse and book activities without leaving your website are shown to improve engagement, whereas those which link-off to third-party sites (or worse still, ask a guest to phone up) dramatically increase bounce rates. Your should ensure that your activities software works for - not against - your hotel website performance.
White Label Integrations
White label integrations vary in their implementation but typically involve a link-off structure whereby an interested guest is directed off your site, to another platform owned by the white label provider. While the site might have some basic branding elements you can control, you get no SEO benefits, and your hotel website conversion is harmed through a broken customer journey.
Direct Bookings Score: 1/5
White label integrations vary in their implementation but typically involve a link-off structure whereby an interested guest is directed off your site, to another platform owned by the white label provider. While the site might have some basic branding elements you can control, you get no SEO benefits, and your hotel website conversion is harmed through a broken customer journey.
Direct Bookings Score: 1/5
Turneo Experiences Platform
When experiences are browsed and booked directly on your website, alongside the room, your hotel website benefits from improved SEO, conversion and engagement. Guests perceive your hotel more favourably when they can enjoy a seamless booking experience, and are also given exciting, inspirational content to enjoy.
Direct Bookings Score: 5/5
When experiences are browsed and booked directly on your website, alongside the room, your hotel website benefits from improved SEO, conversion and engagement. Guests perceive your hotel more favourably when they can enjoy a seamless booking experience, and are also given exciting, inspirational content to enjoy.
Direct Bookings Score: 5/5
Ease of set-up
Full technical integration of any product into a hotel’s technology stack can get complex. The ability to start quickly and grow or adapt over time is critical when it comes to choosing activities software. Often hotels wrongly assume that they need to accept significant upfront investment and long lead times before seeing a return on any experiences offer. However, recent developments in technology mean that this is no longer the case, and your activities software should be easy to set-up, and be flexible enough to adapt and grow over time.
White Label Integrations
The simplicity of a white label template means that set-up time is kept to a minimum. Although you'll always need input from your in-house team to make changes on your own website, white label piece is likely to be ready to go in just a few days. However, this can result in constraints down the line when you want to grow, expand to adapt your experiences offer.
Ease of Set-Up Score: 5/5
The simplicity of a white label template means that set-up time is kept to a minimum. Although you'll always need input from your in-house team to make changes on your own website, white label piece is likely to be ready to go in just a few days. However, this can result in constraints down the line when you want to grow, expand to adapt your experiences offer.
Ease of Set-Up Score: 5/5
Turneo Experiences Platform
Enabling browsing and booking directly on your own website is more complex than white label solutions which simply link-off to standalone store. However, the new Turneo Experiences Elements feature does a good job in making something seemingly difficult relatively straightforward. Typically the technical set-up takes no longer than the white-label template, however, selecting and onboarding new experiences will be determined on a case-by-case basis depending on your existing set-up and relationships. This may pay dividends in the long-run however, when the additional control over your offer puts you in a better position for growth.
Ease of Set-Up Score: 3/5
Enabling browsing and booking directly on your own website is more complex than white label solutions which simply link-off to standalone store. However, the new Turneo Experiences Elements feature does a good job in making something seemingly difficult relatively straightforward. Typically the technical set-up takes no longer than the white-label template, however, selecting and onboarding new experiences will be determined on a case-by-case basis depending on your existing set-up and relationships. This may pay dividends in the long-run however, when the additional control over your offer puts you in a better position for growth.
Ease of Set-Up Score: 3/5
Ongoing costs and commissions
The single most important cost to consider in offering externally organized experiences will be the commission split between you and the experience organizer. While to start with, this may make a very marginal difference, as your experience offer grows and improves over time you don’t want to be boxed into paying away those profits as commission.
White Label Integrations
Hotel commissions are typically fixed between 5 and 8%, losing a sizable portion of profit to the white label provider. This can limit your profit potential in the long-term, especially as white label providers can act as a monopoly over supply.
Ongoing Costs Score: 2/5
Hotel commissions are typically fixed between 5 and 8%, losing a sizable portion of profit to the white label provider. This can limit your profit potential in the long-term, especially as white label providers can act as a monopoly over supply.
Ongoing Costs Score: 2/5
Turneo Experiences Platform
There are two key benefits when it comes to commissions on the Turneo platform. Firstly, the rates are more favourable, with hotels typically earning between 15 and 20%. Secondly, you have the option to change experience providers over time- meaning that if commissions grow high in one place, you have the power to respond and act accordingly.
Ongoing Costs Score: 4/5
There are two key benefits when it comes to commissions on the Turneo platform. Firstly, the rates are more favourable, with hotels typically earning between 15 and 20%. Secondly, you have the option to change experience providers over time- meaning that if commissions grow high in one place, you have the power to respond and act accordingly.
Ongoing Costs Score: 4/5
Operational complexity
There are so many systems involved in managing and running a hotel. Experiences can make up more than their fair share of these: you’ll need something for tracking your external suppliers, something else for your spa, another system for the restaurant and bar…and so on. There is always a balance to strike between specialist software and something general enough to cover multiple use cases, but when it comes to your activities software one thing is clear: it should simplify your operations, not give staff an extra thing to juggle.
White Label Integrations
White label integrations have one key shortcoming that is never going to change: you can only offer experiences that they already have on their platform. That means you are always going to need separate systems for anything in-house or anything involving an alternate provider. As a result, while in the short-term they may not seem to add complexity, in the long-run you are creating potential issues for your staff and operations.
Operational Complexity Score: 1/5
White label integrations have one key shortcoming that is never going to change: you can only offer experiences that they already have on their platform. That means you are always going to need separate systems for anything in-house or anything involving an alternate provider. As a result, while in the short-term they may not seem to add complexity, in the long-run you are creating potential issues for your staff and operations.
Operational Complexity Score: 1/5
Turneo Experiences Platform
If there's one thing that truly sets apart the Turneo Experiences Platform it's the flexibility to add anything - really, anything - to your experience offer. You can add your own in-house experiences, and/or use unique/personal providers not available elsewhere. Plus, it's really easy to do so - unlike adding and integrating experiences across specialist providers. As your experiences offer grows over time, you'll not only see increasing revenues but increasing improvements in efficiency.
Operational Complexity Score: 5/5
If there's one thing that truly sets apart the Turneo Experiences Platform it's the flexibility to add anything - really, anything - to your experience offer. You can add your own in-house experiences, and/or use unique/personal providers not available elsewhere. Plus, it's really easy to do so - unlike adding and integrating experiences across specialist providers. As your experiences offer grows over time, you'll not only see increasing revenues but increasing improvements in efficiency.
Operational Complexity Score: 5/5