Sometimes it's the seemingly simple things that prove to be the most difficult. If you're a golfer, you know exactly what I mean. All you do is hit the little white ball down a pretty, manicured fairway to get it on the green. After that, just tap the ball ever so gently with your putter into the little 4 ¼ inch hole, get a pat on the back from your friends, then off to the next tee box. Sounds easy, right?

Let's apply that same logic to the hotel booking process. As a hotelier, keeping potential shoppers engaged on your website and booking engine, and moving them toward a purchase sounds simple enough. You just get them to your website, let them find the room and rate that fits their needs, collect payment, and confirm the booking. Like golf, it seems as though it's not a difficult process. Unfortunately, that's not always the case.

As a hotel shopper, the shopping process can be a bit frustrating. For example, say I find a special "golf weekend" offer on a hotel website that interests me. I can end up going back and forth from one page to another and to the booking engine several times to check availability. It's possible that I may never get close to actually finding a room or rate that matches my desired travel dates and/or budget. We refer to this as the "website/booking engine dance." It causes 88% of shoppers to drop off the booking engine before ever completing their booking. Suddenly, you've lost your shopper in the rough.

Some OTAs and online retailers have their golf game right. Amazon is certainly one we can learn from. They have enabled an in context process keeping the shopper engaged and driving conversion by providing the item description, information, images, price and calls to action without ever leaving the page. As a shopper, I'm less likely to abandon my search and more likely to make a purchase. Why? You have all the information you need to make a decision. And better yet, you'll likely return because they made it so easy. Hey, let's make how we do business this easy... the game is challenging enough.

The new SynXis Booking Engine In-Context Suite has made it possible for you as a hotelier to deliver a truly delightful shopping experience. Blurring the lines between the website and booking engine, the In-Context Suite allows shoppers to complete a booking without ever leaving your website. This engages shoppers in a seamless booking experience and influences them where buying decisions are made. Shopper's frustration goes down and your conversions go up. A hole in one if you will.

Quit bending your clubs around the abandonment tree. Increase your conversions by engaging your website visitors at the point of inspiration. Learn more about how to implement an In-Context booking engine viewing our "Transform the Booking Process" webinar.

Let the SynXis Booking Engine In-Context Suite help you get your golf game back on track! Contact your Sabre Hospitality Solutions professional (Account Manager) for more information.

To learn more about the In Context concept, see page 2 of the Future of Hotel Booking.