Determinant of Applying Online Travel Agent as Marketing Media in Star Hotels at Sanur

Abstract

Sanur as one of the tourist destinations in Denpasar has hotel tourist facilities, both star and non-star hotels. The number of star hotels in Denpasar City is 34 and 73.5% are located in Sanur. Hotel managers in this region need to carry out promotional activities to win the competition, one of which is through collaboration with the Online Travel Agent (OTA). Through OTA, tourists who want to travel can book rooms online on the OTA website, without having to contact the hotel manager to ask for room availability. Similarly, the ease of payment of rooms through this medium has made this reservation mode become more popular. The purpose of this study is to examine the factors which influence star hotel managers in Sanur to use OTA as a marketing medium and other determining dominant factors. The sample of this study was 72 people from 12 star hotels recruited using a purposive sampling method based on their positions from two departments (Front Office Department and Sales and Marketing Department) in each hotel, namely managerial level, supervisor and staff. The results showed that most of the sales of star hotel rooms in Sanur made use of OTA (32.05%) in addition to the Travel Agent and Direct Booking. The OTA which was used was predominantly Booking.Com, because it reaches the entire world, supported by the many languages used, namely 43 languages. The development of the OTA model needs to be done considering that there is a forum for General Managers who routinely hold meetings where they alternately become the Host. Through this model, contributions will be made to the Corporate Social Responsibility in the Sanur area, both in the use of human and financial resources for traditional activities and activities related to Hinduism.