The hospitality industry is more competitive than ever, especially in big cities where hotels constantly compete for guests' attention. But there’s good news: you don’t have to be just another hotel or short-term rental in the crowd. Here’s how you can rise above the competition and get higher occupancy, revenue and visibility then your peers.

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Understanding Your Hotel Competitors and Comp Sets

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To outperform your hotel competitors, you must first understand them. Conduct a comprehensive hotel competitive analysis to identify your primary Competitive Set.

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What is a Hotel Comp Set?

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Before we go any further, let’s ask this question: What is a Hotel Comp Set? A Competitive Set is a group of hotels that are considered direct competitors to your hotel. These accommodations are typically similar in terms of location, target market, services, and amenities. By analysing your Comp Set, you can benchmark your performance, understand market positioning, and develop effective pricing and marketing strategies. Here's a deeper look into what constitutes a hotel Comp Set.

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1. Establish Your Hotel’s Competitive Set

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Before making any analysis, it is very important to correctly determine your ideal Hotel Comp Set. A lot of people rely on their intuition for this, or compare themselves with all of the properties in their city. This is not the right way to create a hotel competitive analysis. It is essential to select the right properties to make a good comparison. There is a way to determine this in a more calculated way. Let’s dive into one possible technique. 

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First determine the attributes you should consider when deciding your Comp Set:

1. Location 

When analysing competitors, you don't have to search far and wide. Travellers often prioritise location in their search filters, making properties near yours the most direct competitors. Here’s a key insight: many travellers value nearby attractions more than the accommodation itself. 

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2. Stars

The stars are a very important indicator of the category of a hotel. You should only pick hotels nearby that have the same number of stars as your accommodation.

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3. Features

Another important attribute is features. For example you shouldn’t compare a hotel with a pool, with a hotel without a pool if you are located in a sunny location. Keep those important features in mind when selecting your comp set. 

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4. Prices

Lastly, consider the pricing of other accommodations. While prices are very dynamic and can fluctuate frequently, this attribute is still valuable. Analysing competitor pricing can reveal trends and help you position your rates strategically. 

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5. Extra 

Additionally, consider factors like target audience, seasonal trends, and future aspirations. If you plan to upscale your property, identify competitors in that new market segment.

Selecting the right comp set is often quite difficult. That is why we want to help you.

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You can request a competitor's analysis here, and we will create a Comp Set for you for free. 

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2. Leveraging Booking.com’s Extranet Tools for a competitor’s analysis

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Booking.com’s Extranet offers a straightforward way to conduct the analysis. Here we will explain how you can use it to conduct a hotel competitive analysis.

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For more information on how you can use this tool for your benefit, you can check out our previous blog.

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1. Navigate to the Extranet and follow these steps:

• Go to “Manage Competitive Set”
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  • On the left side you can see the comp set Booking.com has selected for you. Most of the time this selection is too big and there are many irrelevant properties. 
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  • You should add your calculated Competitive Set on the search bar and create your own set. It is better to only have 6 competitors, than 20 irrelevant ones. Be selective.
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  • Once you’ve saved your selection, note that you can only modify your competitive set after 30 days.
    
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2. Customising Your Analytics Dashboard

When you go to the Analytics Dashboard you can customise the report. This tool allows you to track various performance metrics and make data-driven decisions. 

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You can select the period of the comparison and the group you want to compare with. In the box underneath “Comparison with” you can select “Competitive Set”. This way you can compare with your selected

competitors.

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Key Features of Booking.com’s Extranet Tools: Ranking Dashboard

• The Ranking Dashboard provides insights into how your property is performing on Booking.com. Here, you can track your ranking compared to your hotel Comp Set and identify areas for improvement.
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This dashboard is the most interesting for your hotel competitive analysis. Your ranking impacts your whole strategy. If you are ranked poorly, you can have the best strategy in the world, most people will never find your listing and your hard work will go to waste. 
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• You can easily compare your ranking in the competition overview. In the example you can see in the screenshot below our client is positioned highest amongst its competitors. 
• In this box you can also compare your competitors review score. This is an important factor and also impacts your ranking.
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Based on that comparison you can find out if you should take action to rank higher on the platform.
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Since 75% of the bookings go to the first 15 listings, this will impact your revenue and occupancy a lot. Keep reading further to find out how you can improve your ranking. 

By leveraging Booking.com’s Extranet tools and regularly analysing your hotel competitors, you can refine your strategies, improve your market position, and drive more bookings. Further in this blog we explain how you can leverage the insights from this analysis into an actionable plan. 

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3. Putting Competitive Insights into Action: Utilising SWOT Analysis

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After establishing your hotel Competitive Set and gathering valuable insights, the next crucial step is to transform these insights into a strategic, actionable plan. A highly effective way to achieve this is through a SWOT analysis.

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A SWOT analysis helps define a measurable plan of action. By understanding your property’s strengths and weaknesses, you can better identify the threats posed by your competitors and convert these threats into opportunities. Strengths and weaknesses are internal factors that reflect your own property’s attributes, while opportunities and threats are external factors influenced by the competitive landscape and market conditions.

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Conducting a SWOT Analysis

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Write down what you learned from your hotel competitive analysis to visualise it. The best way to do this is by using a SWOT analysis template. You can use the one below, or create your own. You need 4 squares where your fill out these components:

1. Strengths:
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   • Evaluate what sets your hotel apart from others.
   • Highlight unique features, exceptional services, or superior location advantages.
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2. Weaknesses:
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   • Identify areas where your hotel falls short compared to competitors.
   • Consider factors such as outdated amenities, limited facilities, or subpar online presence.
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3. Opportunities:
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   • Look for external possibilities to improve and grow your business.
   • These might include market trends favouring certain amenities, partnerships with local businesses, or increasing tourism in your area.
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4. Threats:
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   • Assess external challenges that could impact your hotel's performance.
   • Consider what competitors offer that you don't, such as superior amenities, better pricing, or more effective marketing strategies.
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Based on this analysis you can start prioritising your most important changes you want to make to get ahead of the competition. The most important aspects to tackle are first of all pricing and visibility. Both of these can easily be optimised. We will explain further in the text how you can do this. 

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After that you can look for ways to highlight your strengths more and work away your weaknesses in a logical order to create the fastest progress. 

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Leveraging Automated Ranking Management for Visibility

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Visibility is paramount. No matter how perfect your pricing strategy is, how beautiful your rooms are, or how great your review score, it’s useless if potential guests can’t find your listing. This is where OTA ranking management becomes an important tool for you to get more visibility online. 
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OTA ranking management is a new solution that implements an algorithm that scrapes the data from the biggest OTAs on a daily basis. This data is being analysed and based on that, the algorithm finds the parameters that determine the ranking position of the listings. 

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After finding out these hundreds of parameters the OTA ranking management algorithm targets the listings to push them up in the list. This way it can guarantee that the connected listings get the highest ranking and create on average a 150% increase in listing views. 
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An example of a hotel that became the market leader after implementing an OTA ranking management solution is Historic Hotels, a Belgian independent hotel chain. Within just a few weeks, this chain saw a 30% revenue surge in Ghent and 40% in Aalst during the low season. Moreover, three out of their four hotels consistently appeared on Booking.com’s first page, leading to a notable increase in direct bookings.

Visibility is really the cornerstone of a good strategy for every hotel. After ensuring that, you can start working on your pricing, review score, guest satisfaction et cetera. 
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Conclusion

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Navigating the competitive landscape of the hospitality industry demands strategic innovation and leveraging advanced technology. By understanding your competitive set and utilising tools like Booking.com’s Extranet, you can make data-driven decisions to improve your visibility and attract more guests. Conducting a SWOT analysis and prioritising key areas such as pricing and visibility are crucial for staying ahead. 
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