From Villach, for holiday hotels across Austria
15 % commission to Booking.com - on every single booking.
Your hotel is fully booked. But 60-70 % of bookings come via Booking.com & co. On every booking 15-18 % goes to Booking, Expedia or HRS. For 100 room nights per month at €120 that’s already €1,800 to €2,160 that doesn’t land with you. The question isn't whether you need online marketing - it's whether you can afford not to.
Does this sound familiar?
Three patterns that come up in many holiday hotels.
What is your hotel paying Booking.com this week?
What we have demonstrably delivered for hotels
+150 % bookings in 12 months. With the same ad budget.
A 4-star hotel in the Carinthian lake region, year-round operation, with a motivated team of its own but no online marketing experience. In 12 months: bookings increased by 150 %, completely new guest groups unlocked, the strongest month with ten times the enquiries compared to the previous year. Without raising the ad budget.
Bookings in 12 months
Additional ad budget
Guest groups & source markets unlocked
Enquiries in record month (vs. prior year)
Update. This hotel runs its marketing entirely on its own today - without us. That’s the point: we build systems that work without an agency. Anyone who stays, stays voluntarily - not because they have to.
What most hotel marketing agencies don’t do
Four gaps the industry knows about - and no one closes.
We looked at full-service providers in South Tyrol, Germany and Austria. Four points come up everywhere - and are deliberately avoided, because they cost the agency money or make it easier for clients to leave.
Nobody measures real bookings
Clicks and enquiries get counted. What actually turns into a booking, with the arrival date in your hotel software, nobody counts.
Our approach: booking measurement, as far as your booking system allows. So you see what a booking costs - not just a click.
Nobody gives up long contract terms
The usual model is a fixed monthly fee with a long contract term - whether something works or not.
Our approach: Cancellable daily. No minimum term. If we don’t deliver, you can leave tomorrow.
Nobody honestly says “you can leave”
Website, visitor statistics and ad account are often registered in the agency’s name. If you cancel, you lose your data and your campaigns.
Our approach: Everything belongs to you. Your ad account with Google, your visitor statistics and all settings are in your name. We only get access, which you can block again at any time.
Nobody respects your brand
Same wellness photos, same hashtags, same templates. Hoteliers feel pressed into agency moulds.
Our approach: Your voice stays your voice. We amplify your hotel - we don’t uniform it. Led by a team that grew up in the hotel business itself.
When the website is the bottleneck
Sometimes the problem isn’t the advertising - it’s the website.
We’re the internist of your marketing. WelleWest is the surgery for your website. You need both - but you don’t want a diagnosis from the surgeon, or an operation from the internist.
Sometimes it’s not the ad budget, but the website itself: too slow, hard to use on a phone, no clear path to a direct booking. Then even the best advertising won’t help - it brings guests to a website where they don’t book.
For those cases there is WelleWest, our sister company for hotel websites: pages that load in under a second, with voucher and spa sales if you want them. Own brand, own team, own contract.
If Patrick sees in the first call that the advertising will only work with a new website, we bring in WelleWest - as a separate project with a separate contract. You end up with both, but each from the right specialist.
Seasonal pricing
A price that follows your season.
In the off-season only the price drops, not the work: marketing for the next peak season keeps running. All prices net per month.
Two commitments
Cancellable daily. No minimum term.
All accounts belong to your hotel. Your ad accounts with Google and Facebook, your visitor statistics and all settings are in your name. We only hold access rights.
After the start phase, your system is in place
After the two-month start phase your system is in place: measurement of enquiries, ads in Google Search, ads on Facebook and Instagram, dedicated offer pages.
We set up booking measurement as far as your booking system allows - we clarify that together when we set things up.
How it works
In two months your system is in place. Verifiably.
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 measurement (measure booking enquiries, not just clicks), look at competitors, review existing advertising.
Week 3-6: Build
Ads in Google Search on search terms where guests book directly (not „hotel Carinthia“, where Booking bids €8 per click), ads on Facebook and Instagram for guests who match your hotel.
Dedicated offer pages that lead straight to booking. Reminder ads for visitors to your website who haven't booked yet.
From week 7: Optimisation
Seasonal budget steering: more budget in low season, less when you are full anyway. Testing two versions of each ad against each other.
Testing new source markets (Germany, Netherlands, Italy - depending on potential). The system learns which guests are most profitable.
No long contract: Everything belongs to you. Your ad accounts with Google and Facebook, your visitor statistics and all settings are in your name and stay there. Cancellable daily, no minimum term.
Your contact
Patrick grew up in a Carinthian hotel.
Patrick has been around hospitality and gastronomy since childhood. His parents ran a 3-star Superior hotel at Verditz, where he learned essentially every department of the operation first-hand - from service and kitchen to reception and guest care.
Naturally, he completed his training as a hotel professional (Hotelkaufmann) at the Carinthian schools of tourism and then worked at several well-known houses in the region - among them the Warmbaderhof in Villach with its acclaimed gourmet restaurant, the Strandhotel Burgstaller in Feld am See, the Burgstallerhof and the Ertelhof.
On top of that come additional qualifications that show how deeply he’s rooted in hospitality: Alpe-Adria wine sommelier, cheese expert, dietary chef and cocktail waiter. For Patrick, hospitality isn’t an industry he read about - it’s the everyday life he knows: the November call from the accountant just like the fully booked Sunday lunch in August. The seasonal dynamics around Lake Wörthersee, Lake Millstätter, Lake Faaker and Lake Ossiacher are home turf, not theory.
Today he leads the hotel team at Nordsteg: strategy conversations, getting everything set up, ongoing partnership - from the very first call.
“Hoteliers often know better than any agency what their house is. My job is to translate that into measurable marketing - not to uniform it.”
30-min strategy call with Patrick →Pitfalls - what most get wrong
6 mistakes that come up in hotels again and again
Budget without seasonal logic
Most hotels trim the budget a little between seasons - and think that’s it. Real seasonal logic is more: it’s not just how much you spend, but where and for whom. In early summer, your guests come from different regions than in high summer. Anyone running the same source markets with the same messages year-round leaves the biggest lever on the table. For us seasonal logic means: matching budget level, matching source market, matching message - set anew for each part of the season.
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 depend less on Booking.com & co.
- ✓At least €2,000/month ad budget - Only at this scale do campaigns deliver solid data and can be steered seasonally.
- ✓Your own website - We bring guests to your website instead of to Booking.com. How they book there, we work out when we set things up.
- ✓Willing to give direct bookers an advantage - 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 - that should be enough.“ Being booked in high season is the norm in our target size. But if you have no interest in deliberately filling the off-season, early season and late season, we’re not the right partner. We build year-round occupancy - not high-season marketing.
- ×Expectation that Google Ads will fill the hotel in 2 weeks - The start phase takes two months. 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. Even without a direct booking option, measurable direct enquiries via email and contact form are possible. But the willingness to take online enquiries seriously as a channel has to be there.
Deeper into the topic
Hotel marketing from practice
Concrete numbers, honest answers and examples from the day-to-day. With numbers that are measurable.
Practice case · Less commission
Fewer bookings via Booking.com & co. - how a 40-room hotel saves 27,000 euros per year
What Booking.com really costs a leisure hotel and which four levers cut the share of bookings via Booking.com & co. by 8 percentage points.
Read article →Measurement · Cost per booking
Cost per booking instead of clicks - what hotel marketing reports hide
Clicks and enquiries say little about whether advertising works. Only the cost per booking, measured against the real bookings in your hotel system, shows whether marketing actually delivers bookings.
Read article →Decision guide · Agency choice
Choosing a hotel marketing agency - 6 criteria to avoid lock-in
Lock-in is the standard, not the exception, in the hotel marketing market. Six criteria plus warning signs from the first conversation.
Read article →Market overview · Provider types
Hotel marketing providers compared - 5 types, honestly mapped
Brandnamic, HTechnology, opensmjle & co. - five provider types with decision logic by hotel profile.
Read article →Grant logic · Austria
Hotel marketing grants in Austria - what really pays off
ÖHT, aws, KMU.DIGITAL, KWF, SFG - grants cover setup, not operations. What works, what fails?
Read article →Frequently asked questions
Who does marketing for a hotel with 40 rooms?
How do I lower my Booking.com share?
Is there a notice period?
What does hotel marketing cost in the off-season?
Who owns the ad accounts?
What do I need from my booking system?
Do I have to cancel my Booking.com partnership?
Not ready to talk yet?
Understand how we think first - in book form.
"Umsatz ohne Zufall" is the method behind our results. Written by Nicolas Fabjan from 15 years of practice with over 400 companies. Not a theory book - but the concrete plan we apply with every single client.
Every participant of a strategy call receives the book personally signed by post.
Ready for more direct bookings and less commission to Booking.com?
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.
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