The starting point
When we began, the group’s online activity was marginal. Rooms were listed on the major platforms, but nobody was managing them as a sales channel: content was thin, rates were static, reviews went unanswered and the availability offered online was whatever happened to be left. Online revenue was a rounding error next to tour-operator business.
The decision was to stop treating the channels as a side task and make them the first priority.
Phase one: build the engine
Over the following two seasons we applied the full channel playbook. New platforms were activated. Every listing was rebuilt with professional imagery, complete descriptions and coherent room-type mapping. Reviews were answered systematically. Promotions were used deliberately, with a cost per booking attached to each. And, above all, static price lists gave way to dynamic pricing that followed demand, pace and the competitive set week by week.
The effect was immediate in the first season and compounded in the second. Online revenue multiplied many times over, and the group’s properties became visible in markets they had never reached through operators alone.
Phase two: from volume to margin
Once the engine was running, the question changed. It was no longer “how much can we sell online” but “how much of that revenue do we keep”. The group signed a rate-protection agreement that in effect nearly doubled the price at which rooms were sold on the platforms. Booking volume from OTAs fell, as intended. Profit per booking rose, commissions fell in absolute terms, and the hotel’s own website became the cheapest place to book, which is exactly where the demand started to go.
Phase three: distribution on our terms
In the following seasons the strategy evolved into a deliberate, gradual withdrawal of inventory from selected platforms. Availability was held back for the direct channel and for the most profitable partnerships. Headline online revenue declined; the group’s profitability and its independence from third-party channels did the opposite.
What this shows
Online channels are a tool, not a destination. The measure of success is not gross online turnover but control: over price, over availability and over the share of bookings that arrive directly. Getting there took strong channel management first, and the discipline to give up volume later.