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Adsomia

VERTICAL · Hospitality

Marketing for hotels, resorts, and stays.

Direct bookings instead of OTA dependency. Local search + AI travel queries + WhatsApp + email lifecycle so guests find you, book direct, and return.

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The bottleneck

What we hear from hospitality (hotels, resorts, stays) clients.

OTAs (MakeMyTrip, Booking.com, Agoda) take 15-25% commission. Most Kerala stays don't have a working direct-booking funnel — so they leak margin every booking.

  • 75%+ of bookings come from OTAs (high commission)
  • Direct site converts at <2% (industry avg: 3-5%)
  • Repeat guest rate is low — no post-stay nurture
  • Property doesn't show up in AI travel queries
  • Reviews come in but aren't systematised

Our approach

What we ship for hospitality (hotels, resorts, stays).

  • Hotel website + booking-engine SEO

    Schema markup for Hotel, LodgingBusiness, Room, and Offer types. Rich-result eligibility for room rates and ratings directly in Google search. Mobile speed tuned to under 2.5s LCP.

  • Local SEO + Google Business Profile

    Optimised GBP with hotel category, photos, posts, Q&A, attributes. Geo-targeted content for the keywords actual guests type — "boutique hotel Munnar" not just "hotel Munnar".

  • Direct-booking conversion optimisation

    Booking-engine UX audit, abandoned-booking recovery, price-parity messaging, urgency cues. The on-site work that turns visitors into direct guests, not OTA detours.

  • Reviews acquisition + display

    Strategy to convert satisfied guests into TripAdvisor + Google + direct-site reviews. AggregateRating schema attached. Trust signals visible on every page.

  • Long-tail keyword content (location + amenity)

    "Pet-friendly resort Wayanad", "ayurveda retreat Kovalam", "weekend stay near Munnar" — the long-tail informational queries where direct-booking buyers actually search.

  • Google Hotel Ads + free booking links

    Google's free booking link program puts your direct rate next to OTAs in search. Setup, integration, and ongoing optimisation against the OTA bid wall.

  • Meta + Instagram for hotels (Kerala-cultural)

    Visual storytelling that earns attention, not just impressions. Kerala-festival calendar (Onam packages, Christmas escapes), regional aesthetic, Malayalam captions where relevant.

  • Email marketing for past + prospective guests

    Segmented lists, pre-arrival upselling, post-stay reactivation, special-offer campaigns. The first-party data strategy that drives a 2.9× revenue lift in industry benchmarks.

  • OTA balance — not OTA elimination

    We don't promise zero OTA dependency. We rebalance. Most Kerala hotels can shift from 70% OTA / 30% direct to 40% OTA / 60% direct in 12-18 months — that's the realistic, profitable target.

  • Hotel HEO (AI travel-query visibility)

    When travellers ask ChatGPT "where to stay in Kerala for ayurveda" or Perplexity "best boutique resort near Alleppey backwaters," AI engines increasingly recommend specific properties. HEO citation seeding so AI engines name your property by name.

  • RevPAR + ADR + CAC reporting

    Monthly performance dashboards tied to actual revenue metrics, not just traffic. Direct booking ratio, average daily rate (ADR), revenue per available room (RevPAR), customer acquisition cost (CAC) — by channel, by season.

  • Photography + videography (when needed)

    Adsomia's Content & Visual cluster handles room shoots, drone footage, lifestyle content, social-ready reels. Bundled with the marketing programme or scoped separately.

Our process

How we deliver hospitality (hotels, resorts, stays) marketing — sequenced for compounding effect.

  1. weeks 1-3

    Audit & strategy

    Direct-booking ratio measurement (where you are now). OTA channel-mix analysis. Website SEO + booking-engine audit. Competitor benchmark across Kerala hospitality. Output: a real "shift OTA-to-direct" target with a sequenced roadmap.

  2. months 1-2

    Foundation

    Hotel schema rollout, GBP optimisation, booking-engine UX fixes, mobile speed work, review-acquisition system. The work that has to land before paid spend ramps.

  3. months 3-9

    Direct-booking demand generation

    SEO content, Meta + Instagram brand work, Google Hotel Ads, email lists. Demand for the brand specifically, not just for "Kerala hotels".

  4. months 6-12

    OTA rebalance

    As direct-booking demand grows, gradually rebalance OTA spend and rate parity. The goal: keep volume on OTAs while shifting margin-rich bookings to direct.

  5. ongoing

    Optimise + scale

    Monthly reviews of RevPAR, ADR, direct-booking ratio, CAC by channel. Kill underperforming, double down on what works. Annual brand campaign for peak season.

Why this matters

The economics of hospitality (hotels, resorts, stays) marketing.

  • +14 pts

    profit-margin uplift on direct bookings vs OTAs (95.82% vs 82.06%)

    Source: Industry benchmark

  • 2.9×

    revenue lift achieved by hoteliers with a first-party data strategy

    Source: Sojern 2025

  • 60% / 40%

    realistic 12-month direct-to-OTA ratio target for most Kerala hotels

    Source: Adsomia hospitality engagements

Typical engagement

How it usually starts.

Most stays start with the Be Found Sprint (90 days, ₹1.95L founding offer) for visibility, then move to a Be Bought retainer + Local SEO retainer (~₹1L/mo combined) for sustained direct-booking growth.

Common questions

About marketing for hospitality (hotels, resorts, stays).

How quickly can we reduce OTA dependency?

Realistic shift takes 12-18 months. Direct-booking ratio of 30% can typically grow to 50-60% in that window if the marketing programme is sustained. We don't promise OTA elimination — we promise rebalance, with higher-margin bookings moving to direct first.

How do we shift bookings from OTAs to direct?

Price parity (same room price direct vs OTA) + direct-exclusive perks (free upgrade, early check-in, drink on arrival) + WhatsApp pre-arrival reaching out before stay + retargeting OTA visitors with direct offer. Takes 3-6 months to materially shift the mix.

Can you optimise for AI travel queries (ChatGPT, Perplexity)?

Yes — this is what HEO does. We deploy Hotel schema + FAQPage + comparison content ("X vs Y hotels") + connect to TripAdvisor + Wikidata so AI engines have structured data to extract from.

Will you handle our OTA listings too?

Yes — listings, rate parity, photography sync, response strategy for OTA reviews. We treat OTAs as a managed channel, not a competitor. They drive discovery; the work is shifting the conversion to direct over time.

Do you do photography / video?

Yes — Videography & Animation service. For hospitality we typically shoot in 1-2 days (rooms + amenities + experiences + lifestyle shots) and produce 30-60s social cuts + a hero brand film.

What about ayurveda and wellness-specific marketing?

Significant Kerala niche. We handle ayurveda retreat marketing including AYUSH-compliant claims, treatment-page content, practitioner profiles, and the international SEO work (UK + GCC + US markets are big ayurveda-tourism source markets).

What if AI search starts replacing how guests book hotels?

It already has, partially. Perplexity and ChatGPT recommend specific properties for prompts like "backwater resort with cooking class." HEO is exactly the work that gets your property named in those answers. The earlier you start, the harder competitors find it to displace you.

Do you work with single hotels or only chains?

Both. Single boutique stays + multi-property chains. The work scales — schema, GBP, content, paid all benefit from being run as one programme across properties. Chains get cross-property SEO + brand consistency wins single hotels can't.

Related

Read next.

Marketing is the work.
Digital is just our medium.

Want to talk about your hospitality (hotels, resorts, stays) business?

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