HOTELS, HOSTELS AND TRAVEL

The hotel marketing agency that brings bookings home.

We help hotels, hostels and travel brands win more direct bookings and pay less commission, with search, social, email and a booking journey that converts.

Talk to us about your property Do the maths

Illustration: an arrivals board showing bookings coming in from different channels, some booked direct and some through booking sites.

WHERE WE HAVE BEEN

We have sold rooms from the inside.

Before GoodFolks, our founder ran ecommerce and digital for two of Europe’s best-known hostel brands, and worked agency-side with independent four and five star hotels. That is where our approach to hotels comes from.

GENERATORDIRECTOR OF E-COMMERCE

Direct booking at scale

Our founder led ecommerce at Generator, a hostel brand with properties across Europe. Booking engines, rates, paid search and the numbers behind every booking.

ST CHRISTOPHER’S INNSHEAD OF DIGITAL

Beds and bars together

Head of Digital at St Christopher’s Inns, where the job is selling beds and filling the bar downstairs at the same time.

INDEPENDENT HOTELSFOUR AND FIVE STAR

Luxury, independently run

Agency work with independent four and five star hotels, where every booking is a considered one and the marketing has to feel as good as the stay.

GOODFOLKSAGENCY

Member rates, booked direct

Email and social for a luxury hotel membership brand, sending members into its own booking engine to find their rates.

THE DIRECT BOOKING MATHS

What is commission costing you?

Booking sites earn their fee when they bring you a guest you would never have reached. The trouble is paying it on guests who would have found you anyway. Put in your own numbers and see what moving some of them to direct is worth.

Your numbersBook direct

Bookings a month through booking sites

200

Average booking value

£180

Commission you pay

18%

Share you move to direct

20%

Commission you keep each year

£15,552

480 bookings a year moved to direct

Illustration only, using your inputs. Before the cost of winning those bookings direct.Talk it through

THE GUEST JOURNEY

Every stage is a chance to book direct.

Guests move from daydream to checkout to coming back. We plan the marketing around each stage, so the booking site is never the only easy option.

Dreaming

Before anyone opens a booking site, social, creators and press coverage put your property on the shortlist.

Social
Creators
PR

WHAT WE DO

Pick a key.

Everything we do for hotels and hostels, in one rack. Take a key to see what is behind the door.

ROOM 101

Direct booking strategy

A plan to win bookings back from the booking sites, built around your rates, your guests and your booking engine.

Ask about this

QUESTIONS

Things hoteliers ask us

If yours is not here, ask us directly.

What does a hotel marketing agency do?

We help hotels, hostels and travel brands fill rooms, and fill more of them direct. That covers paid search and social, SEO, email and CRM, social and creators, PR, and the website and booking journey, all measured against bookings and revenue.

How can we get more direct bookings?

Start where your guests already are. Rank and advertise for the searches that lead to your property, give people a clear reason to book with you rather than a booking site, make the booking journey quick on a phone, and use email to bring past guests back. We track every booking to where it came from, so you can see what is working.

Do you work with hostels as well as hotels?

Yes. Our founder led ecommerce at Generator and digital at St Christopher’s Inns, so hostels, with their mix of dorms, private rooms and busy bars, are familiar ground.

Can you work with our booking engine?

Yes. We work with the booking engine you already have, set up tracking so bookings are credited to the right channel, and improve the steps guests go through. If it is holding you back, we will tell you.

Do you work with properties outside the UK?

Yes. We are based in London, and our background includes hostel brands with properties across Europe. Most of the work, from ads to email, runs the same wherever your guests are coming from.

Rooms to fill? Come in.

Tell us about your property, where your bookings come from today and where you want them to come from next.

Email hello@good-folks.co.uk