Hotel Marketing — More Direct Bookings, Less OTA Dependency
Vlas Fedorov — performance marketer working in-house at Grace Group — an international hotel chain, 20 properties. I know hotel marketing from the inside. I help independent hotels build systematic guest acquisition through direct channels.
10+ years in performance marketing · In-house at Grace Group, 20 properties · +60% revenue in low season
Sound familiar?
- OTA commissions eating your margins — Booking.com, Expedia, Hotels.com take 15–25% per booking. At 70% occupancy and $100 ADR, that's $15,000–25,000/month for a 50-room hotel.
- Paid ads not delivering ROI — OTAs overheat the auction, CPC keeps rising, and bookings go back to OTAs anyway.
- No transparency — booking engine isn't connected to analytics. You don't know which channel brings guests.
- Seasonality kills — summer full house without ads, winter empty rooms even with ads.
What I do
- Paid traffic for direct bookings — Google Ads, Google Hotel Ads, metasearch. Channel management focused on cost per booking and ROI.
- Direct booking funnels — retargeting, abandoned booking recovery, email sequences for guest retention.
- Business-language analytics — connecting ad platforms with PMS and booking engine. Reports in bookings and revenue.
Experience
Grace Group — international hotel chain, 20 properties, in-house.
Working in-house at Grace Group — an international hotel chain, 20 properties. Responsible for performance marketing: managing paid search as the primary paid channel.
- Grew paid traffic revenue by 60% in low season (November–December)
- Paid traffic conversion ×2
- 10+ years in performance marketing: EdTech, Travel, MedTech — budgets up to $110K/mo
Result: +60% revenue in low season, ad conversion rate ×2
How we work together
- Marketing Audit — $800–$1,500
- Analysis of ad channels, OTA vs direct booking share, website and funnel, competitors. Action plan with priorities. Timeline: 5–7 business days.
- Ongoing Management — from $1,500/mo
- Paid traffic management, direct booking funnels, end-to-end analytics, weekly reports. Min. ad budget: $1,500/mo.
FAQ
- Who is this for?
- Independent hotels and small chains (2–10 properties) with $1,500+/mo ad budget, a booking engine, and commitment to 2–3 months of systematic work.
- No website or booking engine?
- I can help launch a website with an online booking module as a separate project.
- How fast will I see results?
- First data in 2–3 weeks. Sustainable growth in 2–3 months.
Not a fit if
- Ad budget under $1,000/month
- Need "results in a week"