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+160% Direct Bookings in 4 Months: Cutting OTA Dependency and Rebuilding Revenue for Heritage Luxury Suites

Category
Hospitality
Software
Paid Acquisition, CRO, OTA Reduction, Revenue Optimization
Client
Heritage Luxury Suites
Date
May 18, 2026

Where They Were

Heritage Luxury Suites is a premium hospitality brand offering high-end accommodation for discerning travellers seeking comfort, privacy, and personalised service. Despite an exceptional guest experience, the property was hemorrhaging margin to OTA commission fees, running underperforming paid campaigns, and operating a booking funnel that was converting at only 1.8%, leaving significant direct revenue on the table.

I was brought in to rebuild the entire acquisition and conversion system, from paid media strategy and funnel optimisation through to OTA reduction and revenue-per-booking improvements.

What Was Broken

  • Heavy OTA reliance on Booking.com and Expedia was eating into net revenue through high commission costs on every booking
  • Paid campaigns were generating traffic, but at insufficient ROAS to justify the spend
  • The booking funnel was converting at just 1.8%, losing high-intent visitors before they completed a reservation
  • No retargeting strategy to re-engage visitors who browsed but didn't book
  • No upsell or package infrastructure to increase revenue per guest beyond the base room rate

How I Fixed It

Paid Search & Meta Campaign Rebuild

The paid acquisition system needed a full rebuild, from campaign structure and audience targeting through to ad copy and bidding strategy. I built Google Search campaigns around high-intent luxury travel queries, launched Meta retargeting campaigns for abandoned browsers and high-intent visitors, segmented campaigns by booking stage from discovery through to conversion, rewrote ad copy around luxury positioning and direct booking value, and implemented smart bidding optimised for conversion events rather than clicks.

From low ROAS and inefficient spend to 3.4x ROAS within 60 days, with a +160% increase in direct bookings within 4 months and a significant improvement in traffic quality and booking intent across both channels.

Direct Booking Funnel & CRO Optimisation

Better-targeted traffic arriving at a 1.8% converting booking experience was still losing guests at the final hurdle. I rebuilt the website booking flow for mobile-first usability, reduced the number of steps to minimise drop-off, strengthened trust signals including reviews, security badges, and certifications, and tightened the alignment between ad messaging and the landing page experience visitors arrived at.

Conversion rate improved from 1.8% to 4.6%, from a friction-heavy booking flow losing most of its visitors to a streamlined, trust-anchored experience with meaningfully higher completion rates across all devices.

OTA Dependency Reduction

Shifting the booking mix away from commission-heavy OTAs required giving guests a genuine reason to book direct. I introduced direct booking incentives, including best rate guarantees, perks, and flexibility advantages, promoted these benefits actively across paid channels, and re-engaged past OTA guests through targeted email campaigns, while tracking the OTA-to-direct booking ratio monthly to measure progress.

OTA dependency reduced by ~35%, from a business heavily reliant on third-party platforms for demand generation to one with a growing, margin-preserving direct booking pipeline and a measurable increase in net revenue per booking.

Revenue Per Booking Optimisation

With more direct bookings coming in, the focus shifted to increasing what each booking was worth. I introduced long-stay and premium packages, added suite upgrade prompts within the booking flow, created bundled experiences across spa, dining, transfers, and local tours, integrated upsell messaging into ads and landing pages, and launched last-minute premium offers for spontaneous travellers.

Average booking value increased by +28%, from a flat base-rate booking model to a structured upsell and package system generating new incremental revenue streams from every guest interaction, with booking lead time reducing by ~18% as direct last-minute demand grew.

Results at a Glance

increase in direct bookings within 4 months
+ 0 %
ROAS on paid campaigns within 60 days
0 x
Booking funnel conversion rate
1.8- 0 %
increase in average booking value
+ 0 %
reduction in OTA dependency
~ 0 %
reduction in booking lead time
~ 0 %
ROAS on paid campaigns within 60 days
0 x
reduction in OTA dependency
~ 0 %

The Business Outcome & Impact

Heritage Luxury Suites went from an OTA-dependent hospitality business with an underperforming paid channel and a leaking booking funnel to a direct-channel-led revenue system, with higher booking volume, better margins per reservation, and a growing pipeline of guests who arrived through owned channels rather than commission-heavy platforms.
The paid rebuild drove the traffic; the funnel overhaul converted it; the OTA reduction strategy recovered the margin; and the upsell infrastructure ensured every booking was worth more than it would have been before. Each layer compounded the one before it, turning a reactive, platform-dependent business into a proactive, performance-driven one.
The system is scalable, margin-aware, and built for sustained direct booking growth, giving Heritage Luxury Suites a durable foundation to expand revenue without expanding its dependence on third-party platforms.

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