Sector practice · Hospitality

Digital marketing for hospitality businesses that live and die by the booking window.

Direct bookings, local discovery, reputation and seasonal campaigns – built by people who understand RevPAR, commission drag and why last-minute and advance demand behave like different products. Built for hotels, resorts, serviced stays, restaurants and hospitality groups.

The Hospitality practice
Who We Serve in Hospitality

One sector, four kinds of business.

The campaigns differ; the sector judgment carries across all of them.

01

Hotels & Resorts

Independent properties and groups fighting commission drag and rate-parity handcuffs.

02

Serviced Stays

Aparthotels and serviced apartments selling length-of-stay economics OTAs undersell.

03

Restaurants & Venues

Covers, private dining and events – local discovery and reputation doing the converting.

04

Hospitality Groups

Multi-property portfolios needing brand consistency without flattening each property's story.

What Makes Hospitality Hard

The sector-specific problems generic marketing ignores.

01

OTA dependency eats the margin

Every commission point surrendered is margin you cannot reinvest. Most hotel marketing buys traffic; almost none of it is architected to shift revenue share toward direct.

02

Demand is a window, not a stream

Christmas is decided in September; weekends on Wednesday night. Flat campaigns buy attention after the decision closed.

03

Reputation converts before you do

The booking happens after the reviews are read. Presence without reputation management is a polished funnel with a hole in it.

04

Seasonality punishes flat budgets

Yield-aware spend means investing into shoulder seasons deliberately – not discovering in November the budget died in August.

05

Events enquiries nobody qualifies

Weddings, conferences and group bookings arrive half-formed; sales teams burn hours quoting ghosts.

06

Every property sounds the same

'Luxury rooms, warm hospitality, ideal location' – copy that could belong to any property on the same street.

Hotels do not have a traffic problem. They have a margin problem wearing a marketing costume – and the OTA line is where it hides.

How Buying Actually Works

The buyer reality every campaign is built on.

Get these four wrong and no amount of budget fixes it. This is the sector knowledge we charge for – shared openly.

The decision cycle

Leisure stays: days to weeks, window-dependent. Events and groups: weeks to months with committees. Neither matches a generic funnel.

Who actually decides

The guest for leisure; the organiser plus a committee for events; the OTA algorithm for the lazy middle – unless direct gives a reason.

What builds trust

Recent reviews answered well, real photography, transparent rates, flexible cancellation. Guests buy the absence of regret.

Timing is the strategy

Booking windows differ by property type, market and season. Campaign timing must follow the window – everything else is decoration.

What We Deploy

The service stack for hospitality.

All seven services →
Also deployed where the audit calls for it
Campaign Architecture

How campaigns get built in this sector.

Not hypotheticals – the structures we reach for when hotels, resorts, serviced stays, restaurants and hospitality groups need pipeline.

01
Booking-window architecture
Advance and last-minute demand run as separate campaigns – different queries, pages, bids, creative. Budget follows the decision, not the calendar month.
02
Direct-booking funnel
Landing pages that beat the OTA on value transparency: rate clarity, flexible-cancellation framing, package inclusions, loyalty recognition.
03
Local discovery system
Maps, GBP and near-me search owned per property and outlet; review cadence feeding both rank and trust.
04
Events & groups pipeline
Enquiry forms that pre-qualify date, headcount and budget; nurture for long-cycle event decisions; fast-response SLAs for the short ones.
The Rhythm of the Sector

A year in hospitality, the way we plan it.

Budgets and content follow this rhythm – because your buyers do. Generic agencies discover it in month six, on your invoice.

Q1 – Plan & shoulder

Summer campaigns built now; shoulder-season offers live; events pipeline for autumn opens.

Q2 – Summer window

Peak leisure booking window; direct-booking defence at full weight; last-minute campaigns spin up.

Q3 – The September decision

Christmas and NYE are decided now; festive campaigns launch; corporate events season builds.

Q4 – Harvest & rebook

Festive delivery; January-break campaigns live; post-stay flows harvesting reviews and rebookings.

The First 90 Days

What the hospitality sprint ships.

The full process →
Days 1–15

Baseline

  • Channel mix + OTA share baseline
  • Booking-window analysis by property
  • Tracking & attribution wired
  • Quick wins live (GBP, rate-clarity pages)
Days 16–45

Architecture

  • Window-split campaigns live
  • Direct-booking pages deployed
  • Review cadence operating
  • Email flows segmented by stay history
Days 46–90

Shift the ratio

  • Direct vs OTA share trending
  • Window efficiency reviewed
  • Events pipeline qualified
  • Sprint review against agreed criteria

Fixed scope, deliverables agreed before launch, retainer only when the numbers earn it – how every engagement works.

What We Track in Hospitality

The numbers that mean something here.

Direct vs OTA revenue shareDirect booking conversionCost per booked stayMap-pack visibilityReview velocity & ratingEvents enquiry qualityEmail-driven rebookings

Reported monthly in plain English, against targets agreed before launch. No vanity metrics – sector-honest numbers your board can use.

This is for you if

Right fit

  • Properties ready to treat direct share as the KPI
  • Teams who can supply real photography and guest proof
  • Groups wanting consistency without flattening each property
Probably not if

Wrong fit – honestly

  • Anyone expecting OTA dependence to hit zero – that is not honest
  • Properties unwilling to answer reviews
  • Discount-led strategies that erode rate integrity
Hospitality Questions

Asked by businesses like yours.

Sector-specific answers, honestly given. If yours is not here, the audit call covers it directly.

Request a Sector Audit →
Can you actually reduce our OTA dependency?

We can shift the ratio – meaningfully, over quarters. OTAs remain a demand channel; the goal is growing direct share so commission drag shrinks. Anyone promising zero is selling.

Do you work with independent properties or only groups?

Both. Architecture matters more than size – a single boutique property with clear windows can outperform a group running flat campaigns.

How do you handle rate parity constraints?

We win direct on value transparency, not rate undercutting: cancellation flexibility, inclusions, loyalty recognition and clarity. Parity-safe, margin-positive.

Do you manage our reviews too?

We build the response-and-acquisition system around your existing tools and connect reputation signals to the campaigns that depend on them.

What about restaurants and venues inside the property?

Each outlet gets its own local discovery presence and campaign logic – covers and private dining behave nothing like room nights.

Which booking engine do you integrate with?

Yours. We architect around your engine and PMS rather than forcing a replatform – and we will say honestly if the engine is the leak.

Next Step

Request a hospitality digital marketing audit.

Reviewed by a strategist who knows the sector: a 30-minute call plus a written summary of your gaps, the practical next steps, and the first fix we would make. No pitch, no obligation.

  • Sector-fluent review – no explaining your industry from scratch
  • A written summary, yours to keep whoever you hire
  • The sector-specific first fix, named – with the reasoning

Request a Sector Digital Marketing Audit

A hospitality strategist replies within one working day.

No obligation, no pitch, no automated drip.

Received. Taking you to the next step…
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