Travel & Hospitality OTA commissions are costing you more than your marketing budget.
We build direct booking systems for hotels, resorts and tourism operators across EMEA — combining SEO, Google Hotel Ads, and conversion-optimised websites into one integrated channel that systematically reduces OTA dependency. Hotels working with us typically shift the direct booking ration to under 50% within 4–8 months.
The uncomfortable math
Every room you sell through Booking.com pays a toll you chose not to charge.
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18–25%
OTA commission per booking (Phocuswright, 2024)
On a €150 ADR room, that’s €27–38 straight off your EBITDA. Every night. Every year.
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<20%
Direct booking share for most independent EMEA hotels
Industry standard is broken. The channel mix that grew in the 2010s now eats your margin.
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3–5×
Higher lifetime value for direct-booked guests (STR, 2024)
They return without OTA prompting, they spend more on-property, and you own their contact data.
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60–70%
of branded Google searches end on Booking.com — not your site
Guests who already know your name are being intercepted. OTAs bid on your brand. You don’t.
The Resaco direct-booking system
Four levers that move the ratio — and show up in your PMS.
We don’t count impressions. We count direct bookings. Every engagement starts with a channel audit, gets a target model, and ships a month-by-month roadmap.
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Brand search recapture
We run paid brand campaigns that outbid OTAs on your own hotel name — at a fraction of their CPC, because your Quality Score is structurally higher. Typical outcome: 15–25% of branded clicks shift from Booking.com to your booking engine within the first 60 days.
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Google Hotel Ads & metasearch parity
We connect your booking engine to Google Hotel Ads, Tripadvisor Connect and Trivago — ensuring your direct rate is visible wherever travelers compare. Rate parity is managed so your direct channel wins on total guest value, not just headline price.
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Booking engine conversion optimisation
Most hotel booking engines convert at 2–3%. We audit UX friction, A/B test rate presentation, and implement direct-booking incentives (early check-in, breakfast, cancellation flexibility). Industry-typical ceiling for optimised flows is 7–11%.
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Local & generic SEO for high-intent searches
We rank your property for searches travelers make before they know your name: “boutique hotel Barcelona seafront”, “spa resort Finnish Lapland”, “conference hotel Amsterdam”. These searches have high commercial intent and zero OTA commission.
How we work
From channel audit to compound direct revenue — in four phases.
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Phase 1 · Days 1–14
OTA Dependency Audit
- Full channel-mix analysis: 12 months of booking source data
- Brand SERP audit — identifying where OTAs intercept your branded searches
- Booking engine UX & conversion rate baseline
- Deliverable: 2-page audit report + direct-booking opportunity model
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Phase 2 · Days 15–30
Direct Booking Strategy
- Channel mix target model: where the ratio moves to and by when
- Google Hotel Ads & metasearch connectivity setup
- SEO keyword map: brand, local, and high-intent generics
- Deliverable: 90-day roadmap with weekly milestones
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Phase 3 · Months 2–4
Build & Launch
- Paid brand campaigns live — OTA bidding countered on your own terms
- Booking engine CRO: rate positioning, incentive stack, UX fixes
- Local SEO content: property pages, destination guides, schema markup
- Deliverable: live channels, weekly PMS booking-source reporting
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Phase 4 · Months 5–8+
Compound & Optimise
- Monthly channel-mix reviews vs. target model
- SEO compounding: content velocity + authority building
- Seasonal bid strategy adjustments (high season, shoulder, off-peak)
- Deliverable: quarterly performance report + revised target for next period
The OTA math
How much is OTA dependency costing you?
Move the sliders to match your property. The number on the right is what you could redirect to your own business every year by relying less on OTAs and paid middlemen.
Model assumes a conservative shift from OTA to direct bookings, based on Resaco client benchmarks (2022–2025). Actual results vary by market and property type.
40+ companies build growth with Resaco
From the podcast
Hospitality Marketing Lab
Weekly conversations on hotel and resort marketing, hosted by the Resaco team.
Frequently asked
Questions hotel operators ask us first.
If yours isn’t here, send it — we answer every question personally within one business day.
Paid brand campaigns recapture bookings within weeks of going live — the impact shows in your PMS booking-source data fast. Google Hotel Ads connectivity typically fires in 2–4 weeks. Generic SEO compounds over 3–6 months, which is why we run paid and organic in parallel from day one. By month four, most properties see a measurable shift in their channel mix.
The math is direct: every percentage point of direct booking share you recapture at 22% average OTA commission returns that margin to EBITDA permanently. A 60-room hotel at €130 ADR and 70% occupancy saves approximately €42K in annual commissions for every 10-point shift from OTA to direct. Our engagement fee is benchmarked against that savings curve, not against marketing spend.
Yes, and this is the most important framing: we don’t suggest going cold turkey on OTAs. We shift the ratio. OTAs serve a real discovery function, especially for first-time guests and shoulder-season fill. Our goal is a sustainable channel mix — typically 40–55% direct for independent hotels — not OTA elimination. You keep the distribution reach; you stop paying the commission on guests who already know you.
Yes. We set up and manage Google Hotel Ads (Performance Max for Travel Goals), Tripadvisor Connect and where relevant, Trivago Business Studio. We handle bid strategy, rate feed integration with your PMS/IBE, and monthly budget allocation. All channel performance is reported in a single dashboard so you see exactly which channel is generating which booking.
We’re integrated with Mews, Apaleo, Oracle Opera Cloud, Guestline, Siteminder, Cloudbeds, and several others. If your PMS or IBE is not on that list, we assess compatibility on the intro call — most modern systems have the API connectivity we need. We do not require you to switch platforms to work with us.
Yes. Single independent hotels, boutique groups of 2–8 properties, resort operators, and regional chains all have their own direct-booking challenges. For multi-property clients we build a portfolio-level channel model — standardising what works across properties while accounting for differences in seasonality, guest mix, and market. We have active engagements across Nordic, Mediterranean, and Central European markets.
Our primary EMEA focus spans Nordic, Mediterranean, UK & Ireland, Baltic, DACH, Benelux, and Central European markets. We work in English and our team has market-specific knowledge across these regions. For properties outside EMEA, contact us — we assess fit case by case. All tracking and data handling is GDPR-compliant by default.
Travel & Hospitality
Stop paying the OTA tax on guests who already know your name.
Book a 30-minute audit call. We’ll pull your current channel mix, run the commission-savings model, and tell you exactly how much direct-booking headroom your property has — and what it would take to capture it.
4–8 mo to double direct booking share · 18–25% OTA commission recaptured per booking · 40+ companies across Europe · 3–5× LTV uplift for direct-booked guests
Let’s talk revenue
Your competitors hope you skip this form.
45 minutes with a senior strategist. We model your revenue leaks live and leave you a one-page plan — whether you hire us or not.
- No pitch deck — a working session
- Named senior strategist, not a sales rep
- You keep the plan either way
Daniel Laurean · Growth Consultant EMEA
Replies personally, usually within one business day