Direct booking partnership / Revenue share
Hand me the direct channel. You pay 10% on the bookings.
I manage the website, acquisition, tracking, CRO and development of your hotel’s direct channel. The new website is included in the collaboration and my main fee is tied to direct bookings.
- Website included
- Full management
- 10% on direct bookings
The partnership is available to a selected number of hotels and starts only after an assessment of the direct channel potential.
The starting point
The direct channel is not just the hotel website.
A direct booking happens when demand, advertising, website, availability, price, booking engine, tracking and conversion all work in the same direction. If one of those steps breaks, the booking moves to an intermediated channel.
Many hotels split these activities across a web agency, a Google Ads agency, the booking engine provider, a revenue manager and internal staff. Everyone runs a part of it, but nobody is really accountable for the direct channel as a whole.
With this model I take broader ownership: building, measuring and managing the path that takes a potential guest from search to a booking on the hotel website.
The direct booking path
- Demand
- Advertising
- Website
- Availability
- Price
- Booking engine
- Tracking
- Conversion
- Revenue
The model
If the direct channel grows, we grow together.
This is not an agency fee. I invest expertise, work and part of the infrastructure required; the hotel pays mainly according to the direct bookings generated.
Website included
I build or redesign the website needed to sell directly, with no separate upfront development fee.
- Mobile-first design and loading speed
- Booking journey from room pages to checkout
- CRO on room, rate and booking pages
- Integration with the existing booking engine
- Tracking of bookings and their value
- Technical SEO and content structure
- Languages and markets that genuinely matter for the property
Full management
I do not hand over the website and disappear. I manage the channel over time.
- Google Ads and Google Hotel Ads, Search and Performance Max campaigns
- Google Tag Manager, GA4 and conversion tracking
- Booking engine and booking journey analysis
- CRO on the website and landing pages
- Source markets, devices and seasonality
- Coordination with the property’s revenue management
- Measurement of bookings and their value
- Continuous optimisation of budget, campaigns and journey
10% on bookings
The main fee is a 10% commission on the direct bookings covered by the agreement.
- No model where the fee grows simply because hours, campaigns or activities grow
- The goal is to align my remuneration with the economic development of the direct channel
- Advertising budget normally stays with the hotel
The exact attribution rules, booking accounting, cancellations and commission base are defined in the agreement with the hotel.
Comparison
Two different ways of running the same channel.
Traditional setup
- Website
- Upfront cost
- Advertising
- Monthly fee
- Tracking
- Separate project
- CRO
- Often unmanaged
- Web agency
- Separate supplier
- Accountability
- Distributed
- Remuneration
- Mostly independent from bookings
Direct booking partnership
- Website
- Included
- Strategy
- Included
- Advertising management
- Included in the management
- Tracking
- Integrated
- CRO
- Continuous
- Coordination
- Single
- Main fee
- 10% on direct bookings
One person accountable for the direct channel.
I am not claiming this model is always cheaper than any agency or than selling through OTAs: it depends on the property, volumes, average rate and distribution terms. That is exactly what I assess before proposing the collaboration.
Scope of work
From the Google search to the booking.
What managing a hotel’s direct channel actually involves.
Scope of work
01 — Generating demand
Google Ads, Google Hotel Ads, Search and international campaigns. Demand is not bought indiscriminately: it is managed against market, availability, booking value and the capacity of the property.
02 — Bringing users to the right website
A fast, mobile-first, clear website built around booking. Not a brochure of the hotel, but a path designed to bring the guest to the booking engine.
03 — Reducing drop-off
Analysis of the path from landing to rooms, availability, booking engine and checkout, to find where users abandon and what can be improved.
04 — Measuring properly
Tracking of the booking, its economic value, market, device, campaign and path. Decisions are not made on clicks or sessions, but on the bookings generated.
05 — Feeding quality back to the campaigns
Advertising platforms need reliable signals about bookings and their value, otherwise they optimise towards goals that do not match the hotel’s result.
06 — Optimising continuously
Budget, campaigns, landing pages, website and booking journey are revised on real data, not on a setup decided once at kick-off.
Strategy
I do not simply try to send more traffic to the website.
The goal is to increase the hotel’s ability to acquire bookings directly, while keeping acquisition cost, booking value and channel sustainability under control.
- 01
Understand
Hotel, positioning, markets, seasonality, rooms, ADR, booking engine and distribution.
- 02
Measure
Booking tracking and reconstruction of the demand sources.
- 03
Diagnose
Find where the channel loses effectiveness: demand, campaigns, website, pricing, availability, booking engine or measurement.
- 04
Prioritise
Start from the areas that can have the largest impact on the direct channel.
- 05
Execute
Build the website, tracking, campaigns, landing pages and the optimisations required.
- 06
Optimise
Continuously analyse bookings, markets, acquisition cost and user behaviour.
Why it can be interesting
Fewer suppliers to coordinate. More accountability on the result.
- No separate upfront investment in the website
- The website needed for the project is part of the collaboration, not invoiced as a standalone project.
- Costs more aligned with the result
- The main fee grows when the direct bookings covered by the agreement grow.
- One accountable person
- Website, campaigns, measurement and CRO are not run as separate projects by different suppliers.
- Direct seniority
- Strategy and the main decisions are not delegated to a junior account manager.
- Complete measurement
- Campaigns are judged on bookings and their value, not on clicks.
- Continuous optimisation
- The channel is managed over time, not handed over at the end of a project.
Selection
This model is not right for every hotel.
A revenue share agreement only works when the conditions for a genuinely aligned relationship exist. That is why I assess every property before proposing the collaboration.
Favourable conditions
- Independent hotel, boutique hotel or small hotel group
- Clear product and positioning
- Enough booking volume to work on data
- Reliable booking engine, or the option to change the current setup
- Willingness to share the data and access required
- Willingness to invest in media
- Availability, pricing and revenue management that can be steered
- Genuine interest in increasing the weight of the direct channel
- A medium to long-term relationship in mind
Signs it is not a fit
- No acquisition budget
- No way to measure bookings
- No access to the property systems
- A hotel only looking for a free website
- A property with no real room to work on distribution or direct sales
- A purely tactical or very short-term collaboration
The included website is not a free standalone web project: it is part of an ongoing partnership on the management of the direct channel.
Who runs the project
Hospitality experience, with skills that go beyond advertising.
I have worked in digital marketing since 2005 and since 2020 I have been CMO of a US group active across hospitality and MarTech, with marketing responsibility for a portfolio of hotels in the United States.
I still work hands-on on campaigns, tracking, analysis and optimisation: strategy and execution stay in the same hands.
- Google Ads
- Google Hotel Ads
- Booking engine
- GA4 and tracking
- CRO
- Direct revenue
- MarTech
Developing the direct channel takes more than advertising skills: it takes understanding how campaigns, website, booking engine, data and revenue interact.
How it starts
First I assess whether we can create value together.
- 01
Application
The hotel shares a few essential details about the property, the direct channel and the systems in use.
- 02
Assessment
I analyse the property, market, website, distribution, booking journey and direct channel potential.
- 03
Conversation
If I see the conditions to work together, we set up a conversation with the owners or the management.
- 04
Proposal
We define scope, commission, responsibilities, budget, systems, attribution and ways of working.
Applying does not automatically mean the hotel is accepted into the programme.
Application
Apply with your hotel
Three short steps. The information helps me understand whether the conditions exist to manage the direct channel with this model.
10% on direct bookings · website included · partnership subject to assessment
Frequently asked questions
How it works in practice
How much does the management cost?
The main model is a 10% commission on the direct bookings covered by the agreement. The exact calculation rules are defined before the collaboration starts.
Is the website really included?
Yes. When it needs to be built or redesigned for the project, the website is part of the partnership and no separate upfront development fee applies. It is not, however, a free website service independent from the management of the direct channel.
Who pays for Google Ads?
In the standard model the advertising budget stays with the hotel. Campaign management is part of the partnership scope.
Do you also manage Google Hotel Ads?
When it is relevant to the property and its technology setup, yes. Google Hotel Ads is one of the levers that can be used to develop the direct channel.
Do I have to change booking engine?
Not necessarily. The existing setup is assessed first. If the booking engine significantly limits measurement or conversion, we will discuss the possible alternatives together.
Can I apply with a small chain?
Yes. The model can also be applied to small hotel groups, assessing the properties, systems and distribution across the portfolio.
Are all hotels accepted?
No. The partnership is only proposed when there are sufficient conditions to work effectively and measurably on the direct channel.
Can the media budget be included in the agreement too?
Normally the advertising investment stays with the hotel. In established collaborations, with enough history of data and performance, we can consider a model where part or all of the media investment is covered directly by me, redefining the revenue share percentage and the terms of the agreement accordingly.
Direct booking partnership
Can your hotel sell more directly? Let’s assess it on the data.
Apply with your property. I will personally review whether the conditions exist to take over the direct channel under the revenue share model.
Or email me directly fabio.deleonardis@bigup.marketing
10% on direct bookings · website included · partnership subject to assessment
Website included · 10% on bookings
Apply with your hotel