The effect the OTAs do not want you to understand

When a hotel appears on an OTA, it generates not just OTA bookings but direct traffic too. Guests see the listing on Booking.com, become interested, and then search for the hotel directly to research further or find a better deal. Studies estimate the billboard effect can drive between eight and twenty-five percent additional direct traffic for actively listed hotels.

Most hotels receive this traffic and do nothing special with it.

You are paying for visibility you are not capturing

Every booking you take through Booking.com is partly subsidising the brand awareness that drives people to search for you directly. That is not a reason to be angry at the OTAs, it is a reason to have a strategy for what happens when those guests land on your website.

If there is no compelling reason to book direct when they get there, you are paying twice: once in commission, once in lost direct revenue.

What a capture strategy looks like

A guest who searches for your hotel by name is already sold on you. They are not comparing you to competitors. They are deciding whether to book now or later, and whether to do it direct or through an OTA.

They need two things: a reason to book now and a reason to book direct. Both messages need to be visible within seconds of landing on your homepage. Not in the footer. Not buried in a rates page. Front and centre.

The role of Google Hotel Search

Google Hotel Search now shows direct rates alongside OTA rates in search results, before the guest even visits your website. If your direct rate is identical to the OTA rate, guests have no pricing reason to choose direct. But if you are offering something exclusive to direct bookers, you can communicate that value before the click.

Hotels actively managing their Google presence as a direct booking channel are capturing a growing proportion of billboard effect traffic before it reaches an OTA for a second look.

The metric you are probably not tracking

How many guests search for your hotel by name each month? How many land on your website? How many convert to a direct booking? If you cannot answer all three, you are flying blind.

Brand search volume, direct website sessions and direct conversion rate tell you whether your billboard effect capture strategy is working. All three are available in your Google Analytics and booking engine reporting. Track them, set targets, build the interventions that move them.