The story of BenchDirect begins as far back as the choice of name for our company, The Hotels Network, which was a very deliberate decision. The goal was, and still is, to create a network of hotels and hotel brands that can learn from each other, share within the network, and be collectively more efficient and profitable as a result. The most obvious thing to share is data, and we have always incorporated our unique understanding of user behavior and hotel performance across the network into our products and our approach to supporting client success. 

The launch of BenchDirect is a natural progression of this network knowledge, providing hotel brands with a totally new and much more powerful benchmarking tool. Its competitive analytics focus purely on the direct channel, as “direct” is our specialty - our reason to be. Thanks to BenchDirect, you can now unravel the building blocks of an effective direct booking strategy by comparing your hotel’s performance across more than 30 key metrics, including website and booking engine traffic, bookings and pickup, future demand, rates and disparities, user profile and behavior.

Juanjo Rodriguez, our Founder, commented, “THN’s BenchDirect is the first of its kind. Traditional benchmarking products in hospitality only offer you a view of rates and occupancy. You see the end result, a static photo, but you don’t see how or why it happens. By analyzing the full user journey on your direct website, you’ll be able to spot where you are under or overperforming, what the levers are to improve your results, at a granular level. Instead of a fixed photo, you get a live video. Instead of a PDF, you get a full-blown online platform to perform your own analysis.”

The power of the network

With the launch of our new tool, we are also redefining the concept of competitive sets. Instead of a purely competitive view where the goal is to beat other hotels, we pivot to a learning paradigm: the objective is to learn together as an industry. With BenchDirect, you can seamlessly create your own CompSet, but also compare your performance to the full destination, other hotels within your brand and even our own THN global network of hotels. 

In an effort to support the industry’s recovery, we want to provide an opportunity for hoteliers around the world to leverage previously unavailable insights and empower smarter decision-making. Through our network of preferred partners, including Sabre, D-Edge, Mirai, Roiback, Profitroom, HotelRez, DIRS21, Bookonlinenow, Busy Rooms and Hoteliers.com, these partners’ clients can enjoy immediate access to BenchDirect and make a significant difference to their direct channel performance.

Rodriguez concluded, “The power of the network is especially relevant in times of crisis, so let’s go ahead and learn from each other, make better decisions, and build back our industry. 

BenchDirect is currently available; and completely free to use, forever. You can now sign up today to request your free account to this revolutionary direct benchmarking product!