41% now book direct.

Casa OdelaBoutique hotelsPaid search, ConversionSummer 2025

Nine boutique hotels took back a third of the bookings they used to hand to travel sites, in a single season, with search, Meta and two rebuilt pages.

Client: Casa Odela
Sector: Boutique hotels
Channels: Paid search, Conversion
Period: Summer 2025

41%

of bookings now direct, up from 29%

Channels: Search, Meta
Hotels: Nine
Period: One season

Take back the guests the booking sites took.

Casa Odela runs nine small hotels across the Algarve and Andalusia. Seven in ten bookings came through the big travel sites, at up to 18% commission each, and most of those guests had searched for the hotel by name first.

The brief was to raise the direct share before the summer season without a price war, and without upsetting the travel sites they still needed in the shoulder months.

Client since: 2024
Hotels: Nine
Markets: UK, Germany, Spain
Upwell team: Six

Three moves.

What we changed, in the order we changed it.

Weeks 1–2
Own the hotel’s name in search
The travel sites were outbidding Odela on its own hotel names. We split brand search hotel by hotel, matched their rates and led every ad with the one thing they could not offer: breakfast included when you book direct.
Brand search share 52% → 88%
Weeks 3–6
Fix two pages before buying traffic
The booking flow took seven steps on a phone and asked for an account before showing a price. We rebuilt it as three: dates, room, pay. Prices appear on the first screen, and the account is optional.
Mobile completion 1.9% → 3.4%
Weeks 7–16
Meta for people already dreaming
Short room films for past guests and people like them, timed to the weeks when Northern Europeans plan summer. Every ad sent people to the hotel’s own page, with dates already filled in.
62% of Meta bookings from past-guest lists

The ads that brought guests home.

Shot on location over four days in April. Click-through measured to the booking page.

01 / 04Reels · 9:16

“The pool at seven, before anyone else”

Hook rate31%Scaled

Tap the left or right of the ad to skip

Before and after.

Summer 2025 against summer 2024, all nine hotels. Bookings from Odela’s property management system.

Direct bookings, share of totalHigher is better

Before29%After41%

+12 pts

Commission paid to booking sites, seasonLower is better

Before£1.12mAfter£0.81m

−28%

Mobile booking completionHigher is better

Before1.9%After3.4%

+1.5 pts

They treated our booking engine as part of the media plan. Fixing two pages did more for direct bookings than any campaign we had run before.
Daniel FerreiraCommercial Director, Casa Odela