The UK is the fifth most-targeted hotel market in the world for third-party booking sites bidding on hotel names.
New analysis of the Google Ads Transparency Center found that hotels were targeted by an average of nine predatory OTAs bidding on their brand name1. These are third-party booking sites that pay to appear when someone searches for a specific hotel, despite having no direct relationship with the property.
For an industry already focused on growing direct bookings and reducing the cost of distribution, that creates a significant blind spot. A guest can search for a hotel by its exact name and still be directed towards a third-party booking site before they ever reach the hotel’s website.
These sites can source rooms through bed banks or affiliate networks, allowing them to sell a hotel’s inventory without working directly with the property. Across the full study, around 204,000 hotels were targeted by roughly 1.1 million ads in just 31 days.
The result is that a hotel can spend years building its brand and generating demand, only to pay commission when someone else captures that guest at the final stage of their search.
A direct booking can be lost before the guest reaches your website
Hotels invest heavily in increasing direct bookings. That includes their websites, search visibility, marketing and the guest experience that generates recommendations and repeat stays.
Someone searching for a hotel by name is particularly valuable. They have already narrowed down their choice enough to seek out that specific property.
Yet the competition for that booking is still happening on the Google results page.
The ads can feature the property’s name and lead to booking pages containing its imagery, room types and availability. From the guest’s perspective, the journey can feel completely normal. They search for the hotel, click on a prominent booking result and complete the reservation.
The hotel sees a booking that could have arrived directly, but enters through a third party instead.
Why hotels may never see it happening
The problem is difficult to measure because searching for your own property does not necessarily show you what a guest sees.
Google results can vary according to factors including location and device. A GM sitting at the property may see its own website prominently displayed, while a guest searching from Manchester or Edinburgh could see a third-party advert above it.
The booking itself may provide few clues.
When one of these sites sources inventory through an intermediary, the reservation can arrive in the PMS as an ordinary third-party booking. The hotel can see where the reservation ultimately came from, but that does not reveal that the guest began by searching specifically for the property and could otherwise have booked direct.
This creates a gap in the way hotels understand distribution. Direct booking share shows how many guests eventually booked through owned channels. It cannot show every guest who intended to book direct but was diverted before reaching the hotel’s website.
The hotel can end up paying for demand it created
Established OTAs give hotels access to huge audiences of travellers who may otherwise never discover them, with commission forming part of the cost of that distribution.
A guest typing a hotel’s exact name into Google is already much further along the booking journey. The property’s reputation, marketing, reviews or previous guest experience has generated the interest behind that search.
When one of these third parties captures the booking, the hotel can end up paying distribution costs on demand it created itself.
Operto‘s analysis indicates that between 5% and 25% of bookings at affected hotels were coming through predatory OTAs. Even at the lower end of that range, the potential impact makes branded search worth monitoring alongside other distribution metrics.
The cost goes beyond commission
There is also a guest experience problem.
If travellers believe they have booked with the hotel, they are likely to hold the hotel responsible for the experience. Unexpected fees, restrictive cancellation conditions or problems locating a reservation can therefore become an issue for the front desk to resolve.
Hotels may also receive limited guest information through a third party. That can make pre-arrival communication harder and reduce the opportunity to turn that guest into a direct repeat customer.
For independent properties in particular, owning that relationship matters. Repeat guests and direct bookings can reduce reliance on paid acquisition and third-party distribution over time.
Branded search belongs in the distribution conversation
Ranking fifth globally gives hoteliers in the UK good reason to look more closely at what happens when guests search for their property by name.
A simple starting point is to see what prospective guests actually see. Ask colleagues, friends or partners in different locations to search for the hotel by name on mobile and desktop and record which booking sites appear.
If an unfamiliar third party is advertising against the property, the Google Ads Transparency Center can be used to investigate its advertising activity. Hotels can also look for signals in their own data, including changes in direct booking share, unfamiliar booking sources and guest complaints involving unexpected fees, cancellation terms or missing reservations.
One search only provides a snapshot. Advertisers can change domains and targeting, while results vary between users and locations.
Hotels already monitor rate parity, channel performance and direct conversion closely. The UK data suggests branded search deserves a place in that conversation too. For properties investing heavily in driving direct business, understanding who appears when a guest searches their name is a relatively simple way to see whether some of that demand is being diverted before it reaches them.
Notes to editors:
1Based on Operto research data: Predatory OTAs Are Stealing Hotel Direct Bookings One Ad at a Time