Accelerator

Optimize visibility with travelers without discounting your rates or spending on marketing.

Best for:

Properties with minimal marketing funds

Used for:

Boosting placement in search results

Benefits:

Low-risk strategy for increasing visibility

Overview

Sometimes you need to drive more bookings, but it’s not financially feasible to invest in advertising, or discounting. Accelerator helps you appear higher in traveler search results, simply by increasing the compensation rate on resulting reservations.

As a result, you’ll have: 

  • Increased property awareness and consideration by travelers
  • Reduced financial risk, higher compensation paid only on booked rooms
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How it works

Based on your business goals, you determine when you want an Accelerator to boost your placement in search results. Make adjustments or pause the program at any time. Getting started is easy:

  • Define parameters: Target specific time periods or opt to leave the Accelerator on indefinitely.
  • Understand impact: Preview the potential impact of the incremental increases in your compensation rate for your property’s position.
  • Adjust & optimize: Track net room nights, gross booking value and estimated increases in page views and search impressions as a result of having an Accelerator in place.
  • Compensation: We’ll automatically reconcile bookings at the selected compensation level and use existing systems for payment.
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The first five of the top 30 positions in search results capture 65% of the bookings.

Expedia Group, 2016

 

One-third of bookings are for hotels in the top 1 spot (Of the top 30 positions on search results pages).

Expedia Group, 2016

“Accelerator affords us the ability to keep up with the larger chain hotels who have more robust advertising budgets to gain market share and exposure.”

Jeremy K
Director of Revenue
Independent Property, USA

FAQs

Absolutely! They’re designed to be used together and as standalone tools. For example, you might be a VIP Access property running a package promotion to attract travelers who plan ahead, while at the same time leveraging a same-day deal to offset last-minute cancellations.

You can go slow at the beginning, with $0.50 cost per click and a daily budget that feels comfortable, and learn what works for you. Our Media Solutions team is happy to help; you can ask a question or, if you’re ready, sign up for an account.

No, although before you begin, you should review our promotion guidelines. Then feel free to participate in any of our campaigns or promotions – and remember, you can always design your own.

Strategies for using Accelerator vary depending on business need. Some partners are very precise, adding an Accelerator only when they need to fill rooms. Others run an Accelerator for a longer period, paired with a promotion targeting a specific audience, e.g., travelers who book early. It’s easy to test, learn, and adjust until you find an approach that works best for you.

Our easy-to-use platform, Partner Central, will be the primary location for managing reservations, loading inventory, changing rates, and keeping your listing up to date. Many partners opt to use a connectivity provider to link our systems and automatically perform daily tasks. They log in to Partner Central to leverage our more advanced tools including competitive set analysis, real-time market pricing, and other marketing programs. If you have any problems, our local teams are ready to help.

Yes. Expedia Group partners have access to a suite of tools and data insights that help you develop and execute a profitable revenue management strategy. We're constantly innovating and publishing best-practice guidance to support your success.

An online travel agency (OTA) is a key part of your distribution strategy. If your goal is to reach more travelers and attract those who will be happiest at your property, an OTA can help.

At Expedia Group the breadth of our travel supply attracts travelers who are researching, planning, and booking travel. They often plan far in advance, stay longer at your property, and spend more. In addition to helping you fill your rooms, we provide tools and market insights to help you provide outstanding guest experiences and grow your business.

We're one of the world’s leading travel marketplaces, with an extensive brand portfolio that includes both globally recognized and locally relevant travel brands, including Expedia, Hotels.com, Orbitz, Travelocity, and more. Learn more in our About Us section.

No. To keep your workload to a minimum, we automatically email the guest to confirm the reservation.

You can easily cancel a reservation on behalf of a guest in Partner Central. If a cancellation fee applies, you can charge the linked Expedia Virtual Card on the cancellation date.

Yes. The Messages tool in Partner Central allows communication with guests before they arrive and we're happy to include check-in instructions with your property listing. 

As an Expedia Group partner, you choose how you want to accept guest payments. Options include leveraging our secure payment processing to have travelers pay online when they book and charging an Expedia Group issued virtual credit card for payment at checkout. You can also have guests pay you directly at check-out and compensate Expedia Group.

To appeal to the broadest number of travelers, you can choose to offer both options and let the guests decide what's best for them.

It isn't a problem if your property doesn't accept credit cards. We'll make sure your listing communicates how you accept payment (cash, check, credit card, etc.) so travelers are prepared when they arrive. We'll confirm with you in a call to welcome you to the Expedia Group family.

In addition to providing an easy-to-use and secure experience for travelers to book your rooms, Expedia Group invests heavily in advertising, digital marketing, and social media promotion to attract consumers from around the world to your market and individual property.

We're constantly mining our data for insights and emerging travel trends so we can both innovate and develop the best set of free and robust tools that enable you to grow your business. We also operate traveler and partner support centers to help solve the sticky logistical issues that inevitably arise when people set out to explore the world.