How to increase direct bookings for hotels: a media buying plan

TL;DR: Hotels don't win direct bookings by shouting "book direct" louder than the online travel agencies. The 2016 campaigns from Hilton and Marriott worked because they gave guests a concrete reason to book on the brand site, then backed it with heavy media. The hotels pulling it off now add a second move: they buy visibility at the moment guests compare prices, on Google and other metasearch sites, and they judge every dollar by net revenue after acquisition cost, not by clicks.

The search behind this post

Type "how to increase direct bookings" into Google and the first suggestion is how to increase direct bookings for hotels. Type "how to reduce OTA commission" and Google offers it straight back to you. The people typing those phrases aren't looking for a new logo. They're marketing and revenue leads at hotels, resorts and casino properties watching a growing share of their rooms sold by someone else, at someone else's margin.

The pressure is real and it's recent. Cloudbeds' 2026 State of Independent Hotels Report, built on 90 million bookings, found OTAs took 63.4% of independent hotel bookings in 2025, with some markets approaching 80%. OTA bookings were also cancelled 21.8% of the time, compared with 10.6% for direct bookings. In Europe, HOTREC's 2026 distribution study found OTAs' share of hotel bookings grew from 19.7% in 2013 to 29.9% in 2025. And 51% of hotels in that study said OTAs at least occasionally sell their rooms below the hotel's own price, up from 43% in 2023.

So this is a media buying problem as much as a distribution problem. Where you spend determines who owns the guest. The useful way to think about it is then versus now: what the big chains bought in 2016, what it proved, and what the same job looks like with today's channels.

First, know what a booking actually costs you

Every direct-booking plan should start with a number your CFO already trusts. Kalibri Labs, which analyzes actual hotel transaction and cost data, found hotels paid an average of 13% to 17% of a night's room rate to acquire guests through OTAs, compared with 3% to 8% through the brand's own site. D-EDGE's 2025 Hotel Direct Distribution Report puts its clients' average direct distribution cost at 3.5%, against the 12% to 28% OTAs typically charge.

That gap is your media budget. If a direct booking costs a fraction of an OTA booking, every room you shift from one channel to the other frees up money you can reinvest in the media that moved it. Plans that skip this math end up defending ad spend as a cost instead of presenting it as a trade.

Then: the 2016 book-direct wave

Hilton: a real reason, then the biggest buy in its history

On February 15, 2016, Hilton launched "Stop Clicking Around," which its then-CMO Geraldine Calpin called "the largest marketing initiative in our 97-year history," in an interview with Hotel & Catering. The campaign didn't lead with brand mood. It led with an offer: an exclusive discounted rate for Hilton HHonors members who booked direct, everywhere, every day. Calpin said Hilton had found that 57 billion HHonors points, or more than 1.6 million free nights, went unearned in 2015 because guests booked elsewhere.

The media plan was built to make that offer impossible to miss. It ran across TV, billboards, at-home and digital buys, and on-property placements, with spots cut to 60, 30, 15 and six seconds. Hilton's awards entry for EMEA describes more than 800 assets in 18 languages, wrapped elevators and campaign messaging on key cards. Early results, per Calpin: HHonors enrollments up nearly 90% since launch, member occupancy at a record 55% for the quarter, and app business up nearly 150% year over year.

Why it worked: the message was a benefit guests could act on, and Hilton used its own properties as free media to reinforce it with people already in the building.

Where it hurt: the OTAs pushed back. Hilton's vice president of global OTA and wholesale said in June 2016 that a "couple" of online travel agencies had de-preferenced its hotels in search results, The Beat reported. If you still depend on OTAs for a big share of your rooms, plan for that reaction before you go loud.

Marriott: put the money where the results are

Marriott's version started in 2015 with free Wi-Fi for members who booked direct, followed by its "It Pays to Book Direct" campaign and then member-only rates in April 2016. When HOTELS magazine asked Marriott's distribution chief Drew Pinto about the marketing, the answer was mostly about media reallocation: "We've reinvested in the channels that have worked the best." His example was Facebook dynamic ads for travel, whose return on ad spend had beaten some of Marriott's paid search "by pretty good-sized double digits." He also said member-rate bookings were more profitable than intermediary bookings even with fully loaded costs.

Why it worked: Marriott treated the campaign as a test it kept tuning. It shifted money into whatever drove direct bookings at the best return, rather than locking in a flight plan for the year.

What the wave proved, once someone checked the receipts

Discounting to win share makes finance teams nervous, and it should. So Kalibri Labs studied an estimated 52 million transactions at some 12,000 U.S. hotels from May to December 2016, when most major chains were running book-direct campaigns. Room nights grew 7.8% and net revenue 9.3%. After discounts, commissions and channel costs, loyalty rates booked on the brand site still came out 8.6% higher in net average daily rate than OTA bookings, Hotel Management reported.

Kalibri's two-year follow-up added the most useful detail for anyone planning this today. Member discounts fell from 5% to 10% at launch to closer to 2% to 5% by 2018, and the loyalty premium over OTA bookings held at about 9%. Once guests had a habit and a membership, the brands didn't need as big a discount to keep them.

The lesson for today: lead with a strong reason to book direct, then reduce the incentive once the habit forms.

Now: buy the moment of comparison

Most independent hotels, resorts and casino properties can't fund a Hilton-sized TV flight. They don't need to. The highest-intent moment in hotel marketing is when a traveler is already comparing prices for specific dates, and today that comparison mostly happens on Google and other metasearch sites, sitting right next to the OTAs.

Beachcomber, a resort group in Mauritius, is a clear current example. According to a case study from its technology vendor Cendyn, it ran Google Hotel Ads alongside Google's free booking links, Tripadvisor and Trivago, mixing cost-per-click and cost-per-acquisition bidding. From January to October 2025, direct revenue from that mix rose 128% year over year while cost fell 30%. Google Hotel Ads drove 56% of that revenue and the free booking links another 29%. That's vendor-reported data, so read it as a direction rather than a promise, but the mechanism is sound. Be present, with your own price, at the exact moment a guest is deciding where to book.

HOTREC's study shows how far this has spread in Europe: 58% of hotels have meta-search connectivity, and 83% of those connected use Google Hotel Ads. If your property isn't in that comparison, the OTAs are filling the space for you.

A four-layer media plan for direct bookings

Put the then and the now together and you get a plan you can build a budget around:

1. The reason. Before you buy any media, decide what a guest gets only by booking direct: a member rate, an upgrade path, parking, resort credit, room choice or casino play. Hilton and Marriott both led with a benefit, not a slogan.
2. The comparison. Fund metasearch and your own brand search first. These buys catch people who already want your property on specific dates. Bid to show your price next to the OTAs, and make sure the rate you show there is never beaten by a third party.
3. The demand. Use video, social, connected TV (streaming TV ads) and out-of-home to build the market that later shows up in comparison searches. Every one of those ads should carry the reason from layer one. Treat your property as media too: Hilton's key cards and elevators were ad space it already owned.
4. The return. Turn first-time direct guests into members and repeat bookers through email, loyalty and remarketing. This is where Kalibri saw the economics improve: smaller discounts, same premium.

How to measure it so the budget survives

• Net revenue per booking by channel. Subtract commissions, ad spend and fees. That's the number Kalibri used, and it ends the "direct is too expensive" argument.
• Direct share of room nights, tracked monthly against the same month last year, not just total bookings.
• Cancellation rate by channel. A cheaper booking that cancels twice as often isn't cheaper.
• Return on ad spend by layer. Expect the comparison layer to post the strongest numbers. Judge the demand layer by branded search volume and direct share over time, not last-click.
• Repeat direct guests. If first-time direct guests don't come back direct, layer four isn't working.

Questions to ask before you approve next year's media plan

• What can a guest get only by booking with us, and is it in every ad?
• What did each channel cost us per booking last year, net of commission and media?
• Are we visible, with our own rate, on Google when someone compares our dates?
• How would we know if an OTA started burying our listings, and how much revenue is exposed if it does?
• What discount do we need in year one, and what's the plan to reduce it in year two?

The book-direct wave a decade ago showed that guests will change how they book when you give them a reason and pay to tell them. The tools have changed since then. What still decides who owns the guest is having a clear reason to book direct, showing up when guests compare prices, and doing the math on net revenue.

If you're planning next year's media for a hotel, resort or entertainment property and want a partner for the campaign, creative and media plan, J2 Marketing is happy to talk it through.