82% OTA-dependent to
58% direct. Six months.
Hospitality · 45-room Boutique Resort · APAC
Client details under NDA
58%
Direct Booking Share
was 18%
11.2×
Google Hotel Ads ROAS
90-day avg
$127K
OTA Commissions Saved
per year
+$38
ADR Improvement
on direct bookings
The Challenge
82% of room nights came through OTAs — and Booking.com was outbidding the resort on its own brand name.
The property is a 45-room boutique resort in a high-demand APAC leisure market — the kind of resort that gets featured in lookbook editorials and sells out 4 weeks ahead in peak season. Despite that demand, only 11% of room nights came through their direct website. The rest came through OTAs (Booking.com 52%, Agoda 18%, Expedia 8%), tour operators (4%), and walk-ins (7%).
On a blended ADR of $214 with 14.8% commission-to-revenue ratio, they were paying out $398K annually in OTA commissions alone. Worse: Booking.com was bidding on the resort\'s own brand name on Google — meaning guests who specifically searched the property by name were being intercepted, click-charged, and converted by Booking at full commission.
They had no Google Hotel Ads presence, no integrated Search campaign for Hotel Ads to work alongside, and no direct-booking incentive layer to give guests a reason to skip the OTA. Their booking engine was technically functional but not integrated into any advertising bid logic.
The goal: cut OTA dependency without losing the OTA volume needed to fill the calendar. We applied the four-pillar hospitality playbook — Google Ads for Hospitality — over a 6-month engagement.
The Commission Math (before)
Our Approach
Four pillars, integrated. Not a checklist.
Most hospitality marketing fails because the channels are run as disconnected silos — Hotel Ads in one account, Search in another, direct-booking incentives invented as an afterthought. We architected all four pillars as one system from day one.
Hotel Ads + Search built as one strategy
We refused to run Hotel Ads and standard Google Search as two disconnected accounts. Same budget pool, shared negative-keyword logic, single real-time performance dashboard. Hotel Ads captured guests in the comparison-shopping moment; Search captured upstream high-intent ("boutique resort + city" + property-type modifiers). Brand-defense search ran on every search where Booking.com bid on the property name.
Booking-engine intelligence in the bidding
We pulled ADR, real-time availability, occupancy, and 30-day pace from their booking engine into the bid logic. When the resort was sold out three weeks ahead, bids dropped automatically instead of burning spend on traffic that couldn't convert. When a Tuesday-Wednesday shoulder-season window had open rooms at premium ADR, bids surged. Most agencies leave this layer of intelligence on the table.
12-month seasonal campaign calendar
Mapped the property's peak / shoulder / low pattern by source market. Built brand-awareness campaigns ramping 6-8 weeks before peak high season. Urgency-led search ads during prime booking windows. Promo + drive-market targeting in low season to maintain occupancy without discounting the brand. No flat-spend campaign in any month of the year.
Direct-booking incentive layer
Driving traffic isn't the same as winning the booking. We audited the resort's booking engine end-to-end, layered in rate-match guarantees, and built a 4-perk direct-booking offer (free transfers, room upgrade, daily breakfast, late checkout) that materially beat the Booking.com equivalent stay without breaking rate parity. Retargeting sequences for non-converting visitors caught the 60-70% who looked once and left.
The Trajectory
Each month moved direct share up 7-9 percentage points without losing the bookings we needed to keep occupancy.
Month 1
Baseline — measurement infrastructure + Hotel Ads launch.
Month 2
First brand-defense wins; Hotel Ads bidding stabilises.
Month 3
Seasonal calendar live; booking-engine perks soft-launched.
Month 4
Retargeting sequences catching first-touch bouncers.
Month 5
ADR lift visible on direct channel; OTA commission $ dropping.
Month 6
Steady state — direct now largest single channel.
Channel Mix
Direct became the single largest channel — without abandoning OTAs that still drive shoulder-season fill.
Annual Economics
"OTAs were bleeding us dry. Within four months FYI flipped our channel mix — direct bookings are now our biggest channel, ADR is up, and we kept the OTA volume we needed for shoulder seasons. We finally feel in control of our own revenue."
General Manager
Boutique Resort, APAC · NDA
Your Property Could Be Next
Ready to flip your channel mix?
We'll audit your current OTA dependency, Hotel Ads setup, and booking funnel — and show you exactly where direct-booking revenue is hiding.
