Reducing OTA dependency for a two-property hotel group.
Helpful Marketing builds SEO, lead generation, and web systems that turn visibility into calls, form submissions, and new customers.
Helpful Marketing delivered this result for a covent garden boutique hotel group.
A boutique hotel group in Covent Garden was paying heavy commissions to booking platforms.
A direct-booking SEO and conversion programme clawed back margin.
The challenge
Reducing OTA dependency for a two-property hotel group
Over 70% of bookings arrived through third-party platforms, each taking a 15–18% commission.
The hotel's own site ranked poorly for high-intent searches like 'boutique hotel Covent Garden'.
The booking widget on the site was slower and clunkier than the OTA apps guests were used to.
What we did
- Built out location and experience-led content targeting the exact searches high-value guests use
- Optimised page speed and structured data so the site could compete with OTA listings in search
- Replaced the booking widget with a faster, mobile-first flow and a best-rate guarantee message
- Ran a retargeting and email programme to bring OTA-sourced guests back for direct repeat bookings
Results
- +63%direct bookings
- -19%OTA commission spend
- +41%organic traffic to booking pages
“Every direct booking now is pure margin we used to hand straight to a booking platform.”
Services used
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