Industry: Hotels

15 % commission to Booking.com – on every single booking.

Your hotel is fully booked. But 60–70 % of bookings come via OTAs. On every booking 15–18 % goes to Booking, Expedia or HRS. For 100 room nights per month at €120 that quickly adds up to €2,000 that doesn't land with you. The question isn't whether you need online marketing – it's whether you can afford not to.

Free Strategy Call

Does this sound familiar?

Three patterns we see in practically every hotel before we start working.

Booking eats into your margin

Your hotel is running well – on paper. But after Booking commissions, OTA fees and rate parity, less remains than it looks. Every direct booking you win is real money.

Your own website brings hardly any bookings

You have a beautiful hotel website. But bookings happen via Booking – because Booking sits at the top of Google and your hotel is on page 3. Your website is a business card, not a booking channel.

Seasonality without steering

In high season you're fully booked – you wouldn't need advertising. In low season you'd have capacity – but no system that brings guests in a targeted way. Marketing as a seasonal balancer only works with planning.

What we have demonstrably delivered for hotels

+150 % bookings in 12 months. With the same ad budget.

An Austrian hotel with a motivated in-house team but no online marketing experience. In 12 months: bookings increased by 150 %, completely new guest segments unlocked, the strongest month with ten times the enquiries compared to the previous year. Without raising the ad budget.

+150 %

Bookings in 12 months

±0 €

Additional ad budget

New

Guest segments & source markets unlocked

10×

Enquiries in record month (vs. prior year)

Week 1–2: Foundation

Strategy workshop (90 min): who is your ideal guest? Which season do we need to fill? What sets you apart from the 20 hotels in the area?

In parallel: set up tracking (measure booking enquiries, not just clicks), analyse competitors, audit existing campaigns.

Week 3–6: Build

Google Ads on direct-booking keywords (not „hotel Carinthia“, where Booking bids €8 per click), Meta Ads for audiences that match your hotel.

Landing pages that lead straight to booking. Remarketing for website visitors who didn't book.

Week 7–12: Optimisation

Seasonal budget steering: more budget in low season, less when you are full anyway. A/B tests on ads.

Testing new source markets (Germany, Netherlands, Italy – depending on potential). The system learns which guests are most profitable.

Guarantee: All items on the system checklist delivered – or full money back. And everything belongs to you.

Pitfalls – what most get wrong

6 mistakes we see in hotels again and again

Bidding against Booking.com on generic keywords

„Hotel Carinthia“ or „Hotel Villach“ in Google Ads is a fight you can't win. Booking spends millions on those keywords. We find the niches where Booking doesn't bid – and where your direct booking rate is highest.

No rate parity strategy

If your room is €120 on Booking and €120 on your website – why would anyone book directly? Direct bookers need a reason: best rate, upgrade, welcome gift. We help you define the strategy.

Year-round same budget

High season: you're fully booked and burning ad budget on guests who come anyway. Low season: not enough budget, even though capacity is there. Seasonal budget steering sounds simple, but 90 % of hotels don't do it.

Optimising only for bookings, not guest value

A guest who stays 2 nights and never comes back is worth less than one who stays 7 nights and returns every year. We don't optimise only for „booking“, but for the value of the guest over time.

Social media without a goal

Nice Instagram posts are lovely but don't bring bookings if there's no system behind them. We connect social media with measurable campaigns – every post, every story, every ad has a goal.

No review strategy

Reviews are the strongest booking driver after price – and yet most hotels leave them to chance. No systematic process to encourage satisfied guests to leave a review, no professional response to negative reviews. Every unanswered 3-star review on Google costs you bookings you will never see.

Who this works for – and who it doesn't

✓ Good fit

✓Hotel with 30+ rooms – You want to noticeably increase the direct booking share and reduce OTA dependency.
✓At least €2,000/month ad budget – Only at this scale do campaigns deliver solid data and can be steered seasonally.
✓Own website with booking engine (IBE) – The technology is in place. We drive qualified traffic to direct booking.
✓Willingness to adopt a rate parity strategy – Direct bookers need a reason: best rate, upgrade or welcome gift.

× Not a fit

×Holiday apartment with 3 units – The scale isn't enough for a professional budget to pay off.
×„We're fully booked in high season anyway“ – Then you don't need marketing, you need cleverly set rates – not a system.
×Expectation that Google Ads will fill the hotel in 2 weeks – A system takes 90 days to build. Low season isn't a sprint.
×„We don't want online enquiries, only phone“ – Even without a booking system on the website online marketing works. One of our hotel clients has no direct booking option – still we generate measurable direct enquiries via email and contact form. But the willingness to take online enquiries seriously as a channel has to be there.

Frequently asked questions

How many direct bookings can I realistically win?

That depends on your current OTA share, your region and your offering. Typically our hotel clients see a shift of 10–20 percentage points within the first year – for example from 30 % to 45 % direct booking share. Every percentage point less for Booking is real money.

Does this also work for guesthouses and smaller operations?

In principle yes, but the economics have to work. From around 30 rooms or room revenue of €15,000+ per month a professional marketing system pays off. For smaller operations we often recommend targeted individual measures rather than a full system.

Do I have to cancel my Booking.com partnership?

Absolutely not. Booking remains an important distribution channel – but it should not be the only one. The goal is a healthy mix of OTA bookings and direct bookings. More direct bookings mean more margin, not lower occupancy.

Ready for more direct bookings and fewer OTA commissions?

In a free 30-minute call we take a look at your current booking mix and show you where the biggest lever lies.

No obligation. Honest. No sales pressure.

A thank-you for your time: Every participant receives „Umsatz ohne Zufall“ – the book by our managing director Nicolas Fabjan – personally signed, by post. No purchase, no obligation. Even if we don't end up working together.

Book a Discovery Call

Or give us a call: +43 676 4703583