Hospitality
I work on hotel marketing keeping acquisition, distribution and property technology together. Since 2020 I have been CMO of The Bright Hotel, with marketing responsibility for ten hotels in the United States: campaigns, booking engine, measurement and alignment with revenue management.
Sector experience
I don’t come to a hotel as an external consultant who only looks at the ad account. In the CMO role I work daily with revenue management, operations and technology, so I know the real constraints: availability, rate parity, OTA contracts, property capacity and seasonality.
That changes how I read the data. A booking isn’t just any conversion: it can be cancelled, it carries a different acquisition cost per channel, and it has to be compared with what the same room would cost when sold through intermediaries.
Recurring problems
These are situations I meet regularly, and they rarely get solved by increasing the advertising budget.
Cost per direct booking is compared with OTA commission only roughly, without accounting for cancellations, no-shows and technology costs.
Campaigns optimise on a static value or on booking count, not on actual revenue per stay.
The guest reaches the room page and stops at unclear availability, rates that are hard to compare or forms that are too long.
Rate disparity and outdated feeds reduce Hotel Ads visibility and the trust of people comparing channels.
Without cancellations flowing back into the system, the cost per confirmed booking stays unknown.
Campaigns push on dates that are already full and stay quiet in the periods when the property actually needs demand.
Guest journey
The journey doesn’t end at the click: it goes through OTA comparison, the property page and the booking engine, then continues into the stay.
Each step has its own metric. When it isn’t measured, the problem gets blamed on the campaigns by elimination.
Guest journey
The guest is evaluating the destination, not the property yet. Visibility and offer consistency matter here.
Metasearch, OTAs and the direct site are compared on the same screen: price and conditions have to hold up.
Photos, services, cancellation policy and rate clarity decide whether the search continues.
Availability, calendar, upsell and form length determine how much demand is lost.
Emails, upgrades and ancillary services influence total revenue per booking.
Reviews, repeat bookings and CRM close the loop and feed future demand.
Areas of work
The activities change with the property, but this is the perimeter.
Systems and data
Without this access the diagnosis stays partial: advertising data alone doesn’t describe the property’s result.
KPIs
These aren’t reporting metrics: they are the values that move a decision on budget, channels or pages.
Increasing direct bookings only makes sense while the cost of acquiring them stays below what the same room would cost through intermediation.
Frequent mistakes
Method applied
The phases are the ones I use on every project, with the specific constraints of hospitality.
Property model, channel mix, seasonality, capacity and revenue objectives.
Checking tracking, booking value, cancellations and PMS data.
Where the result is lost: campaigns, price, booking engine or process.
Immediate fixes on spend and tracking, structural work on systems and journey.
Hands-on campaign and measurement work, coordination of development and vendors.
Checking the effect on revenue and cost of distribution, not only on platform metrics.
Related
The technical competencies I apply to the property, from account management to measurement.
Google Ads, analytics and MarTech — Open the pageA close but different sector: limited availability, products and seasonality follow other rules.
Travel, tours and experiences — Open the pageThe professional path and marketing responsibility for ten hotels in the United States.
Experience and CMO role — Open the pageDirect answers
Direct booking share, total cost of distribution, revenue per confirmed booking net of cancellations and booking engine conversion. Booking count alone doesn’t tell you whether the property is earning more.
How I define KPIsBy comparing the cost per direct booking with the real cost of the intermediated channel, including commissions, ad spend and technology costs. Then the work goes on consistent pricing, offer clarity and booking engine conversion, not only on more budget.
CRO and the conversion journeyIt depends on OTA dependency and rate feed quality. Hotel Ads reaches the guest at the comparison moment, but it only works with aligned prices and updated availability: without that, it raises spend without moving direct bookings.
Acquisition managementBecause a cancelled booking still counts as a conversion unless it is updated in the system. Importing cancellations and no-shows changes the cost per confirmed booking, and with it the assessment of every channel.
Measurement and trackingIt is the last step before the sale and often where most already-paid-for demand is lost. Number of steps, rate clarity, availability and form length directly affect cost per booking.
Journey analysisYes. In the CMO role I look after marketing for ten hotels in the United States, so I routinely work across several properties, markets and stakeholders, coordinating marketing, technology, operations and revenue management.
Let’s talk about your groupTell me how you sell today, how much weight intermediated channels carry and what data you have available. The first conversation is there to find where the result is lost and whether I can help.