Marketing for boutique and independent hotels
This is the specialty. One property, a small team, a director who also handles the complaints, and a listing on a portal that describes the hotel in the same words as everyone else in the city. Boutique is where direct booking pays back fastest, because the reason to book you is a reason a portal cannot render.
A 30-minute video call. The audit document and the 90-day plan.
What changes
The commission lands on the same nights you would have sold anyway.
No in-house marketing team, so the work always loses to the shift.
A portal listing that flattens what makes the house different.
A guest base sitting in the PMS that nobody has ever written to.
The site was built once, three years ago, and nobody dares touch it.
The specialty. Independent, one house, nothing to hide behind.
A boutique hotel does not compete on inventory, so it should not market like it has any. The work is to make the specific reason your house exists — the street, the building, the breakfast, the way you handle a late arrival — findable in search and legible on the page, then remove every step between that reason and the rate. With one property there is nowhere to hide a weak channel: everything we do has to show up in the same month’s occupancy.
How it runs
Own your own name first
The results page for your hotel name is the cheapest booking on the board. Before any destination content, we take back the guest who already decided on you.
Neighbourhood over city
You will not outrank the portals for the city. You can own the street, the barrio, the reason someone wants to be exactly there — and that guest converts higher.
The guest base as a channel
A small hotel has a disproportionate share of repeat guests. Consent, segment and write to them fortnightly and the second stay costs no commission.
The last click
Most boutique sites lose the booking between the beautiful page and the engine. Fixing that is usually the fastest revenue in the audit.
Every service
Content & SEO
Answer the search that ends in a direct booking.
Newsletter & CRM
The guest already stayed. Get the second night without a commission.
Social
Four pieces a week. Measured in bookings, never in likes.
PR & Media
Authority the search engine can see and the guest can trust.
Branded & Cases
The material your sales team uses to close the group.
Strategy & Data
Cost per direct booking against the commission. The only number.
Questions
We have twelve rooms. Is the fee proportionate?
Run the maths on the commission first: twelve rooms at your ADR through an OTA at 15 to 25% is usually a bigger number than the plan. The audit does that calculation with your figures before you decide.
Can we start with just SEO and content?
Compete is close to that: weekly article, technical SEO, Google Business profile, monthly newsletter, basic social and a dashboard. Most boutique hotels start there.
Do you work with our existing web agency?
Yes, when there is one. We report the technical work needed and either do it or hand it over with specifics, not with a list of complaints.
What if a competing hotel in our city signs first?
Then we cannot take you: one client per city and category. It is the same rule that protects you once you are in.
Book your free audit
A 30-minute video call. The audit document and the 90-day plan.