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Travel & Hospitality

Every unsold night is gone forever

Perishable inventory changes the maths. A discount that fills a room beats a margin you never earn — but only if you know which nights are actually at risk.

Travel & Hospitality benchmarks

Avg. revenue growth
+214%Avg. revenue growth
Contribution margin lift
+68%Contribution margin lift
Avg. store conversion rate
3.6%Avg. store conversion rate
Repeat purchase rate
+41%Repeat purchase rate

Drawn from Digital Squad engagements with travel and hospitality brands. Your realistic range comes out of the audit.

Travel & Hospitality clients

NorthwindLumen LabsHarborlineVerdantAtlas FoodsPoka HealthBrightsideCobalt BankMeridianArdentFoundryKestrel
What we see

What holds travel and hospitality brands back

The same four constraints show up in nearly every travel & hospitality engagement we start.

Platform dependency erodes margin

Booking platforms deliver volume at a commission that consumes a large share of contribution. Direct booking share is the single number that most determines profitability in this category.

Inventory expires

Unlike products, an unsold night or seat has zero salvage value. That changes discounting logic entirely — the right price is whatever exceeds marginal cost when the alternative is nothing.

Demand is seasonal and event-driven

Flat monthly budgets are wrong in a category where a single week can carry a quarter. Pacing has to follow demand rather than the calendar.

Buyers compare in a marketplace you don't control

Even people who find you directly frequently check a platform before booking. Your direct experience competes against an aggregated one.

Our playbook

What we do differently for travel and hospitality brands

01

Model contribution by channel, not revenue

A direct booking at a lower rate frequently beats a platform booking at a higher one once commission is included. Most operators report gross revenue by channel and never see this.

02

Give people a reason to book direct

Not price parity workarounds — genuine reasons. Room choice, flexible cancellation, loyalty credit. Competing on price against a platform you also list on rarely ends well.

03

Pace spend against forward occupancy

Advertising should intensify against soft dates and pull back on periods already filling. This requires connecting media decisions to the booking system, which most operators never do.

04

Own the branded search moment

Someone who found you on a platform and then searches your name directly is the cheapest direct booking available — provided platforms bidding on your name don't intercept them first.

Questions

Travel & Hospitality questions, answered straight.

Reduce, rarely eliminate. Platforms deliver genuine discovery you can't replicate, and operators who cut listings entirely usually lose more volume than they gain in margin. The goal is shifting the mix — capturing the people who would have booked anyway, at a better margin.

How each service works for travel and hospitality brands

Paid Ads for Travel & HospitalityMost operators spend evenly across the month while occupancy varies enormously. The money belongs where the empty nights are.
+68% direct booking share
CRO for Travel & HospitalityGuests arriving direct have usually just used a booking platform. Yours is being judged against an interface with an enormous product team behind it.
+29% contribution margin
Email Marketing for Travel & HospitalityA guest who booked through a platform stayed with you, not with them. Email is how the second booking becomes direct.
+41% repeat purchase rate
Social Media for Travel & HospitalityTravel is the category with the highest volume of unprompted customer content, and most operators have no system for using any of it.
+284% engagement rate lift
App Development for Travel & HospitalityYour app is opened in an airport basement, on a plane, and in a country where roaming was never switched on. Offline is not an edge case here — it is the primary use case.
+147% repeat bookings from app users
Video Editing for Travel & HospitalityRoom footage is interchangeable across every property in your category. The specific thing — the walk, the light at seven, the dish — is what people save and act on.
+284% engagement rate lift
Branding for Travel & HospitalityMost guests meet your brand as a thumbnail in a list of forty alternatives, on a channel you do not control and cannot design. That is the real brief.
+68% direct booking share
SEO for Travel & HospitalityNobody types your hotel name until they have decided where to go. The months before that decision are uncontested by aggregators and almost entirely unclaimed.
+147% repeat bookings
E-commerce for Travel & HospitalityOnce in commission, and again because the guest belongs to the platform. The second cost never appears on an invoice, which is why nobody manages it.
+68% direct booking share
Travel & Hospitality

Let's talk about your growth constraint.

A free 30-minute teardown built around how travel and hospitality brands actually grow. You keep the findings whether or not we work together.