Six tips for choosing the right inventory supplier for a travel business

Every business in the travel industry understands how critical it is to have a great partnership with hotel whole sellers. From offering the latest hotel products, rates & inventory, delivering hotel content, and providing travel agents the incentives and upgrades for their customers, suppliers play an essential role in driving the sales of the travel business.  

But how to select the right hotel supplier to support your travel business?  

We are here to help you with six tips when choosing your next supplier partner or to evaluate your existing hotel provider.  

Six tips on how to select the right supplier partner for your business  

1. Robust technology  

Technology is the backbone of any business, bringing better business opportunities and customer experience. While vetting a potential supplier, see how prepared they are to take care of technology needs such as   

• How fast is their API response time?  
• Do they send advance notifications during scheduled downtime?  
• Do they have the ability to scale with your travel business?  
• Do they implement cutting-edge technologies to make their solutions the best for agents?  

The supplier’s answers to these questions will help you evaluate them better.  

2. Support for extranet or direct contracting  

The next factor to look for while vetting the right hotel supplier is if they are offering support for configuring and using custom rates. Suppliers should offer closed user group rates if you have a member-based travel business, whereas if your business caters to budget travelers, look for suppliers that provide good coverage of cheaper accommodations such as 3-star hotel properties, apartments, hostels, etc.  

3. Regional coverage   

Partnering with regional suppliers can help your travel business grow profoundly. Regional suppliers have a strong foothold in their regions and will provide you with hotel products at competitive prices, generating better sales. Firstly, identify where most of your customers are traveling and choose the right supplier in that region. This strategy will increase customers and sell properties faster.  

4. Pricing structure and commissions 

Another factor in vetting a new supplier is checking their pricing structure. Since the travel market is highly competitive, your business must partner with a supplier that offers you hotels at the best commissions and most affordably priced hotels. If your hotel rates align with what your customers expect, you can have the edge over your competitors and sell more hotel properties at the best rates.  

5. Strong operations & fulfillment support   

Customers are the lifeline for OTAs, and it is essential to partner with a supplier that would offer you excellent customer support. When choosing the right supplier, it is necessary to focus on whether it has robust operations and fulfillment support. When a traveler books a hotel from OTA, the supplier must ensure smooth post-booking confirmation and efficiently handle customer queries, if any.   

6. High-quality hotel content  

Do you know that users check more than 20 hotel attributes before booking a hotel? Hotel inventory is the heart and soul of every travel business. And the right supplier must provide accurate inventory and up-to-date hotel content such as hotel address, geocodes, room images, star ratings, and much more. Why is this an important factor? Well, the hotel content will instill confidence in your customer’s booking decision, build brand loyalty and boost sales too.  

If you are selling hotel products, then working with the right supplier can significantly impact the customer experience and your business. The six factors mentioned above can help you assess the right hotel supplier that can dramatically take your business to the next level.