Hotel Website Marketing: How to Win Direct Bookings

What a direct booking is worth

Every booking through a booking site carries a commission, and your contract sets the rate. The figures below are illustrative. Replace them with your own.

• Stay: 3 nights at EUR 160, so EUR 480
• Commission at an illustrative 15%: EUR 72
• Payment and booking engine costs on a direct booking: EUR 15
• Most you can spend to win the booking directly before the booking site is cheaper: EUR 57

Say you add a perk that costs you EUR 20 per stay, such as breakfast or a late check-out. Then EUR 37 remains for advertising, email and the website. If you convert 100 such bookings from a booking site to direct, you save 100 x (EUR 72 minus EUR 15), or EUR 5,700, before marketing costs.

That number sets your marketing budget ceiling per booking. A campaign that costs EUR 90 per direct booking loses money against EUR 72 of commission. One that costs EUR 25 wins.

What you may charge on your own site

The question hotels ask first is whether they may charge less on their own site than on the booking site. In the European Economic Area, the European Commission's factsheet says that parity requirements of any kind are banned for Booking.com as a designated gatekeeper, including measures with the same effect. Hotels can set prices and conditions freely on and off the platform, including on their own sales channel, and can offer lower direct rates. The factsheet applies to the EEA and to Booking.com.

That does not cover other booking sites, other countries or other terms in your contract. Read each agreement, and ask a lawyer if a clause is unclear. Whatever the contract says, the practical question is what reason you give a guest to book with you.

Give a reason to book direct

A lower price is one reason. Often there are better ones, because a rate cut also reduces income from guests who would have booked direct anyway. Options that cost you less than a discount:

• a perk with a low cost to you and a high value to the guest, such as a drink on arrival or a late check-out
• flexible terms, such as free changes, where your operation allows them
• a room choice the guest cannot make elsewhere, such as the exact room number
• a package that bundles dining, spa or parking
• member-only prices for guests who join your list

State the benefit on the room page, beside the price, and in the search bar. Our hotel website design guide covers where to place it.

Win the searches where guests already look

Search your hotel name and your best-known room or experience on a phone. If a booking site beats you for your own name, you are paying commission to a guest who already wanted you. Our SEO for hotels guide shows how to fix that.

Free booking links also help. Google describes them as unpaid links that show your booking site's rate in its hotel results, with no cost for clicks and no way to buy a better position. You need a Hotel Center account, available rates and a landing page. The prices on the landing page should match the prices in the search result.

Build the email list from the first stay

A guest who has stayed with you is the cheapest guest to bring back. Ask for permission to email at booking, at check-in or on the post-stay survey. Say what you will send and how often, and make leaving the list easy. Check what your contracts with booking sites allow before you market to guests who booked through them.

Send three kinds of message:

1. Before arrival: directions, check-in time, and an offer for dining or the spa.
2. After the stay: a thank-you, a request for a review, and a reason to book direct next time.
3. Seasonal: an early offer before your busy periods and a quiet-period offer when rooms are empty.

Ask guests for a review by link or QR code, as Google's guidance allows. Do not offer anything in exchange for it, because Google prohibits incentives.

Reply quickly to enquiries

Guests who ask a question before they book are close to deciding. Aim to reply the same day through every channel you list. If your team cannot, an automated first reply with a human follow-up helps, as we explain in our guide to automating lead follow-up.

A 90-day plan

Do the work in this order, because each step feeds the next.

If your season starts sooner than week 12, do the second and third rows first.

What to measure

You do not need a large dashboard. Track these monthly:

Make sure the booking engine and website share tracking, because a gap between them hides which marketing worked. Our SEO service page explains how we approach this kind of work, and we quote in writing.