Expand your reach and attract new travelers with Agoda’s B2B affiliate model transcript

welcome everyone we're excited to have you here today as we dive into how a goa's B2B Solutions can help you expand your reach together we'll explore our products and show you how these tools can elevate your property visability and drive greater success so let's get started my name is Bess and I'll be your MC for today I would like to start off by introducing today's speakers Peach and Glenn Peach is our director and Glenn is our associate director of B2B Solutions in addition to sharing Pro trips Pro tips we we also want to hear from you so please join the conversation today by clicking the Q&A button at the top of at the bottom of your screen and feel free to ask us anything and we'll do our best to answer you today um and if you need any subtitles to follow along easier just tap the CC close caption button that's located on the bottom of the screen now I hope everyone is ready so I can hand it over to Peach and Glenn for the agenda and presentation sure good afternoon everyone and thank you for joining us today um from Bangkok so basically today we will want to kind of walk you through on how our aoda btb solution can help you optimize your distribution and what we can offer you um in term of our um all all the functionalities all the things that we we could help you gain access to high value customer so the agenda will cover why uh aoda why you should you optimize your distribution how to access to those higher value traveler and also want to walk you through on all the feature that we have for aoda b2v solution and also we'll end that with the key takeaway Next Step sure um I think the question start with why why should we start optimizing the distribution I think the uh answer L on do you know that right now one of every five booking actually coming from the athlet network and what a network could do is that it Empower you to tap into the new market connect you to new customer beyond the current reach that you have by optimizing your distribution you'll be able to gain more revenues and also tap into to the high value customer that initially the the current distribution may not be able to provide then who who are that those like high value customer look like maybe just a little quiz on um what do you think the the aoda customer is the different from the B2B customer today the next slide so just a little quiz uh I think you probably can see the poll uh popping up right now I think um what do you think would would be the the key difference um segment between the aoda B2B U the the B2B customer versus the OTA today is it higher value but lower link of stay or b lower booking value but higher cancellation rate or see higher booking value and lower cancellation rate or lastly higher cancellation rate but lower length of state so give two more second before we close the poll oh yeah answer still coming in oh yeah uh so actually the the B2B custom um what B2B could offer is actually C we can offer higher booking value and lower cancellation rate and if we look into the the kind of breakdown and the comparison of the the uh profile today right can see that um in term of the average value and also link of stale is almost like two time higher than the what the b2c or the OTA could provide you today in term of lead time that is almost like four time higher and this will allow you to kind of plan your inventory better and try to secure the revenue way in advance and lastly in term of the cancellation rate don't worry about the last minute cancellation booking because this uh B2B segment actually provide you with a much lower cancelation rate then what a Koda B2B can offer you today maybe just another quiz to to kind of wake everyone up in the afternoon so do you know how many affilate partner that aoda currently work with um is it like 10,000 Partners or up to 25 Partners or up to 50,000 or over 50,000 wow oh yeah I think everyone majority got this one right yeah so essentially it oh sh result in a bit yeah so it's actually over 50,000 partner that that we currently connect you to today so once you work with us on the B2B solution we with just a One Stop Shop we able to connect you to over 50,000 partner worldwide and we'll walk you through on on how we can do that so maybe let's take a step back a little bit on and look at our journey on Howa um kind of tap into the B2B space um since 2013 so in 2013 we start our first step in the B2B segment by doing um uh as a branding of Rocket my.com so with that I think we start with the uh basic offering in term of the B2B fast forward into 2022 we uh take a a significant step by combining uh rocket M with aoda and launch rocket travel by aoda and this allow us to kind of streamline all the B2B offering of the what two company used to offer independently by combine together and offer more higher value kind of B2B solution for for all the partners in 20123 then we strengthen the part partnership even further by expand our reach to all the and leverage our uh parent company which is booking holding a uh distribution Network and this allow us to connect you to all with u the all the partner over 70,000 AFF Partners today and this number still growing as we um acquiring more and more partner every single day and lastly in uh just last year we launch um have a significant step in launch a Goda B2B solution we provide this solution with um kind start with selected partner and two of them also is the Radison group and Best Western and Glen will walk you through more on what is the aoda B2B solution can offer you today but we are very proud and very excited to share with you on on what we can do today for you today yeah hand over to Glen thank you very much Peach um and again big welcome to everybody joining us on our B2B webinar today see uh individuals joining us from over five different time zones so I really want to thank you all for taking your busy uh Tuesday to be with us on the webinar today um what we want to basically explain and share with you a little bit more now um is really the value that U Mota is able to add to maybe quite a fragmented um industry when we talk about B2B today um it's an industry that we understand you know has its fair share of challenges um you know you have to work with multiple partners to maybe get a desired um amount of production that you're looking for for your property um at the same time it does come with its fair share of um uh challenges difficulties um in a very very fragmented industry so again what you see on the screen over here um what our program really intends to drive for you today four key pillars so the first one again um as Peach mentioned we currently work with over 70,000 um affiliate Partners in our booking Holdings Network um and again it's a One-Stop connection so when you work together with us um on our B2B program you instantly get this connection that otherwise might take you weeks or even months um to really acquire um by at your own properties and again not all of us have a very sophisticated sales team or we don't really have the time or bandwidth to to maintain and manage those relationships with all of our suppliers as well um and this is really something that enables you to open up that maximum visibility and distribution for your property right now um so we really really are very happy with that Network that we've been able to grow over the past few years um the second pillar um is really un control now I want to give you guys maybe a a scenario that's uh probably a lot of us in the industry have dealt with uh when we work with some of our supplier today so I might be working with um a particular wholesaler I give them a particular wholesale rate that I believe you know it's going to be very very competitive at the same time I believe it's very secure it's fenced it's going to the right distribution channels but more often than not we realize maybe that's not necessarily the case uh I might be doing some test bookings or I might be having um another one of my um Partners reaching out to me or even my customers reaching out to me and say oh I found a much lower rates on this um online Channel um and for us at the hotels we often times really don't have that visibility of where the rates are going to um so what we want to do here is to enable you to have this control and well as the visibility to understand and to see and also to choose where your rates are actually going to so we want to give that B2B distribution back in that back in the control of your own hands and that's something that we'll be explaining um to you over the next few slides on how we can do that for you today the third pillar again is a Hot Topic as always when it comes to these uh rate discussions uh maintenance of parity um so it's one of those things that again we it goes back to the second pillar we don't really know where our rates are going to we don't know how they're being utilized well again we give you that visibility today and the control to ensure that it doesn't cause um intended uh potential rate parity issues that might be existing uh with some of the um networks that we might be working with today in the last bucket would be produce incremental bookings uh for your property and what do we mean by that again today because of how the industry of the B2B might be you know it could actually be cannibalizing and eating into what your OTAs and b2c on retail might be able to produce right so in unintentional or intentionally your B2B rates might be then um eating up those online points of sales when it's technically meant to be offline or um very very Fen distribution only um which means essenti um your your your your online retail channels and your OTA partners are really not able to then generate the value that they're supposed to um on the um authorized Point of Sales so with this solution that we're able to offer you today this also helps you with the control that you have with the visibility that you have you know you'll be able then to and ensure that every booking you get is incremental that it would not be then cannibalizing any of your online or existing points of sales so these are basically the four would say tenants or verticals um that we really um are very proud of of the program that we have today and again in the next few slides we'll be walking you through a little bit more details on how uh these actually integrate into the solution that we have right so we also want to just maybe walk you through a little bit about How We Do It um here at Goa so what most of us I guess are used to seeing would be the bucket on the left side right when we talk about aoda we think of it as b2c we look at it as okay I give a right to Agoda I get paper click visibility I get some customer marketing through our um mobile app push our email blasto on and so forth um and then the usual meta search engines like Trip Advisor trvago and The Usual Suspects what we have now is really that bucket on the right side that helps to add that incremental that currently your property might not be getting um through us at the moment so again the 70,000 Affiliates we break them down into some of these key buckets that you see over there Airlines Banks e-commerce super WS so on and so forth um and again once you know you actually um start to explore some of the solutions with us you'll also be able to then to see you know who are some of these partners that are really driving the value to your hotel um and it also enables you to make a little bit more informed decisions of how you want to actually tailor that pricing on different affiliate points of sales and again it's something that we believe doesn't really exist in the industry today but we want to be one of those who will bring you this feature today to again help you improve your Revenue management strategies um at your properties all right so we let's get a little bit more into the details of how this program actually works so what you see on the screen over here is actually a snapshots um of a what we call a B2B portal that we would actually be providing to everyone who actually works with us on our B2B programs today so the screenshot that you see over here is completely separates from what you might have on ycs today so we're all very used to using ycs by uploading pulse campaigns by um creating our rate channels rate plans and so on what you have over here is really just a separate reporting as well as a campaign partner management level dashboard then enables you to see a split view of your B2B production so the metrics that you'll see over here would only be the metrics that come from your B2B bookings through this program now why do we want to do that I think the first thing is to definitely start to segment and show you that well B2B production is really going to be completely separate from what you might be having um on ycs today this also makes it a lot easier for internal reporting when you're trying to measure maybe the um the ROI and the uplift that you're getting uh by offering the rates um your B2B rates to aoda it also enables you I guess to make more informed Revenue management decisions when you're able then to isolate um the say booking Trend the cancellation rate Trend your length of stay your lead times compared to the regular production reports that you might be getting um through Ys today because again remember the profile of the B2B traveler is or the B2B customer is actually a little bit different um than what you might be getting on the go to direct today so this is sort of the visibility we want to bring to you um as an added value to this program again enabling you to make much much better Revenue management decisions on the next page over here uh we have one of the functions that we believe would add a lot more value as well and this is called the partner management overview now what this partner management overview does for uh you today is essentially give you a breakdown of exactly the points of sales on a partner level an affiliate level where your bookings are being made how many bookings you're getting what is the average booking value of each of the bookings you're getting how many room nights you generating what is the lead time the losos trends that you're getting now why is that important again today I we sort of believe that a solution like this doesn't really exist um and it's one of the pain points that we've understood in the B2B industry for a while that I give one rate it kind of goes everywhere I have no control I can't um manage this Revenue a little bit better uh because I don't have don't have the insights to do it today we're able to give this to you um so you're able then to maybe even be a little bit smarter on the pricing you can understand um who's producing for you and if you look on the right side of this um dashboard as well you'll see that there's a status tab over there so um if you want to you can actually choose exactly the points of sales that you want to distribute to and if you're not happy with some of the points or sales or you believe that maybe there's even a rate um Integrity issue you can actually choose to spend the distribution um on some of these Partners today so again giving you that full control of where your rates show up how much you want to pric onto certain points of sales um and even run strategic campaigns to drive certain Origins to drive certain customers through these points of sales maybe I want more corporate travel customers I'm able to do that uh through this solution today again something that probably doesn't really exist in this shape of or form in the industry today but we want to be able to deliver this value uh to you by trusting us with your B2B rights today all right so we've spoken quite a bit um we want to just maybe take a quick pause right now and do a little bit of uh uh like see see see your understanding of the program today um we've actually not covered this part so we want to see if you can maybe guess how we will not distribute uh the B2B rates that you will give us today um so is it a will we distribute it on the Yodo website or do we only distribute it on a connection joint landing pages or white label Solutions so we'll take a few seconds uh to uh that you guys have a crack at this question over here all right I see a lot of responses on a particular one all right I guess that's the amount of trust that you have also placed into us for this program which is really really cool okay let's give it two more seconds and yes I think most of us got this one correct we won't distribute this B2B rates on the Agoda website the other three we will actually distribute so that is the intention um again why do we not distribute this on the Agoda website it's very simple right we we go back to the four pillars or the tenants that we mentioned at the start we want to generate something incremental uh for your properties today we're not here just to replace whatever b2c production that you have that's not the intention we want to add and not take away we want to drive more value different customer profiles customers that you don't access today and this is how we do it so the three ways that we actually and uh distributes and we connect with our partners today so I'm quite sure that most of us are familiar with these so the first one API connections we have direct connections with most of our major Partners through these joint Corporate Landing pages so get only accessible by customers of these particular programs and the last one white label Solutions this is mainly used with our Airline Partners um as well as a couple other corporate travel Partners so um a Ana a Asia um we normally collaborate with them through these white label Solutions um that are only being accessed by the customers directly on these um Airline websites directly right now again we talked about us not Distributing um the B2B rates on aoda website now first of all we want to do a sort of like a commitment um to all of you here on the call to say that uh we have two sort of guard rails I would say to ensure that this doesn't happen so the first one would be a test booking or um or a suspected rate leak uh leakage screenshots so if you provide us the rates and you and and and you do a sech or you have one of your rate shopping tools pick up a suspiciously low rates on theoda frontend and you think it's actually because of the B2B rates that you provided to us being displayed on the Agoda website you can either do a test booking or you can actually just screenshot um the uh the the the rate for us um and then you'll be able to send it to us we'll do the check and if it's um basically seen to be an actual rate a breach of uh of the rate distribution uh we would actually have a 24hour resolution time for you to ensure that this uh do never ever repeated again the second thing is again if it shows on the Yoda front end um and if there's a test booking being done we would act give you sort of like a financial compensation for the fact that the rate has been leaked so think of it as sort of an insurance policy we're actually putting money on the table here to guarantee the fact that these rates would never uh be leaked online on our direct websites to ensure sure that we again commit to the incrementality that we're wanting to drive for your hotel through this program right now it's talking about test bookings one more function that we actually have on our B2B um portal is a test booking function so what you'll see on this page over here if you look at the bottom we would actually Place test bookings for um on on on a um frequent basis just to ensure that you know we are making so we want to make sure that our rates are not being leaked all over the place but at the same time we also want to help you um effectively manage your Revenue a little bit better because we also understand you might be continuing to work with some other B2B Partners as well so by placing these test bookings we will actually do it on our budget on our time um and it will be able to shine some lights on any other rate violations or uh distribution breaches that might be happening out there um and all this data basically gets um aggregated into this dashboard that you see over here and you'll be able to see some trends of maybe some um suspicious repeated offenders right and maybe the The Next Step that you could have there is to go back to these uh partners that you work with have some of these conversations with them to ensure that some of these uh rates don't leak again um or even uh maybe um do do do like a stop sell and see if that actually stops the problem right so again test bookings is something that we understand is very very timec consuming today uh but we want to take that step um and integrate that into one of the program offerings that we have today to take that responsibility on for you and give you that visibility that you need on the dashboard right so I think in summary what we want to show as well were some of the markets that we launched the go to B2B since um last year so these were some of the results that we had um in Q4 of last year so if you look at the left side um we look at it as all the partners that we worked with before and after activation of our B2B program s and all of these are growth numbers in terms of gross room nights pre and post activation of the program so the gray bar is the month before activation and all the blue bars are basically the first second and third month respectively um post activation of the program and you can see on average we were growing about 31% after three months uh for each of our hotel partners that actually joined this program in our Three core markets um and especially for those of you who might be dialing in from Japan we actually saw much much bigger growth over there so just signaling that you know there is a a lot of um room for growth a lot of appetite to open up new customer segments again that maybe you're not accessing today um so I think it's a very encouraging sign especially for some of us who maybe are slightly behind our Revenue targets or occupancy targets definitely something uh to consider over here right so I think uh in summary we have a few key takeaways um some next steps for all of you um so again just to summarize the whole program offerings that we have today um what we aim to do here at a go to B to be um is really just to drive that incremental volume incremental Revenue growth incremental room nights uh through your hotel right without cannibalizing by expanding um your reach to our 70,000 and growing Partners um globally right so again One Stop solution connect with all of them instantly through our program we want to give you back that control we want to give you visibility of where your rates are being distributed how your rates are being distributed you can control where it's going to that's the key um aspect that we have on our partner management functionality on our B2B platform the other one would be on rate Integrity so again we guarantee that the rates never get shown on the Agoda website we have insurance policies for that to ensure that doesn't happen um and again we place test bookings ourselves so we take that responsibility from you but we're also not scared to do the test bookings ourselves because because if we get caught we would also be compensating you but we are very very confident that that would not happen and of course the last Bucket over here will be then incremental production so everything you get would not be cannibalizing what you might already have on some of your other B2B and OTA campaigns right so how do we do this I guess that's to sum everything up right um so we have three different tier programs uh that you can consider today um so we start with the basic one um so what do we offer the basic right um we do offer everyone gets access to the B2B portal that we just mentioned however some of the features obviously would then need to be unlocked by joining medor the advance or the pro our over 70,000 worldwide Partners uh but we will only be able to show you on a reporting level a split of B2B and B2B Toc rather than the full-on view of the partner affiliate level um the for us uh to join this basic program would be for us just to match the lowest uh B2B rate in the industry on the advance in the middle here we give you a little bit more control we give you a little bit more um visibility as well so you'll be able to view and control your distribution by segments segments meaning like Airlines e-commerce super apps Banks corporate travel so on and so forth rather than just the individual partner level here we would also place the test bookings for you but we would need to have the lowest rate in the industry as well as selected consolidation of uh your current existing B2B Partners again the details of that can be explained um if you want to have those conversations with us after this call today on the last bucket the pro function we basically open up every function to you so you can control everything again as you saw earlier on by partner level um your reporting gets done by the partner affiliate level so you get that full visibility um and the the key here would be to have a full exclusivity of for B2B right distribution um on a Goa only so it definitely is a tall order but at the same time we believe that the offerings that we have um definitely will make that transition a little bit more manageable and easier uh to to to to move towards this uh this solution right on this slide here we just want to give you a little bit of a breakdown of what that reporting looks like right so on the basic again you would see on that reporting two lines B2B B2B to C Advan you get that segment View and on the pro side you would get the actual partner um affiliate breakdown okay so some next steps I would say um if you're interested for sure please um Reach Out scan the QR code that you see over here feel free to answer that survey um and then one of us will be in touch with you um on how we can actually set this up how do we get access to the portal um and what sort of rates we would need uh from your property today to make this program happen and work for you so feel free to go ahead scan that code we'll leave that in the chat after the session as well for you to refer to okay so just the last one I guess before we take some questions from the from from from the call um is there something that You' like to try out for yourself right so let us know indicate your your your interest over here um if you do say you want to uh explore this will definitely be in touch um as soon as possible give you another detailed walkth through of and demo of the program um as well as discuss how the rate structure can work for your property he well I think um probably can move on to some Q&A that we have from Nicole okay thank you Peach and Glenn for the presentation and I hope everyone that joined us today gained some valuable insights on a goa's B2B solution s