How to maximize direct bookings: Lessons from Kingston Hotels Group

About Kingston Hotels Group

Kingston Hotels Group is a well-established hospitality group with 8 hotels in Bangkok. They’re a dedicated player in the direct booking movement, and have been working with Triptease since 2021 to optimize their performance on metasearch and retargeting. Over the past year, they’ve seen a 63% increase in direct bookings via metasearch, and 116% increase in direct bookings via retargeting.

We spoke with Siddhesh Gawde, head of marketing at Kingston Group, to learn more about how Kingston has achieved continued growth in their direct bookings since investing in their relationship with Triptease.

Background

Before Covid, Kingston Hotels Group relied on affiliate partners for much of its marketing activity. The pandemic changed everything - with few bookings coming in as travel shut down, the group had no option but to scale back external marketing efforts, choosing to manage campaigns in-house.

This ended up being a blessing in disguise - by investing in tools that allow them to drive direct bookings and cut out the middle men, Kingston has been able to deliver consistent growth in their direct channels, specifically metasearch and retargeting, with Triptease.

Metasearch optimisation

Although Kingston sees more than 65% of metasearch bookings come from Google Hotel Ads, with Triptease’s metasearch management they’re also able to balance campaigns more efficiently across other platforms, especially TripAdvisor and Kayak. Using Triptease’s data-driven algorithm to bid on metasearch, Kingston is able to drive more direct bookings at this crucial point in the customer journey. Siddhesh also recommends working with Triptease in order to take advantage of their subject matter expertise.

Getting buy-in from owners

It’s important for marketing and revenue teams to help hotel owners and GMs understand the benefits of getting more guests booking direct. When going through the performance of the hotels in Kingston Hotels Group, Siddhesh always makes sure to highlight the difference in cost associated with bringing guests in direct vs. via OTAs. He’s found that through consistent communication with GMs and owners, they’ve become more convinced of the power of direct bookings - and willing to invest in driving more.

In Siddhesh’s words: “OTAs deliver more immediate bookings but at a higher commission cost, while driving direct bookings via metasearch results in lower acquisition costs over time. It also provides better long term value, particularly due to customer retention, brand presence and relationship building.”

Building a culture that prioritizes direct bookings

For Siddhesh, increasing direct bookings is a team sport. Kingston’s monthly sales and marketing meetings involve ranking the properties to identify those bringing in the most direct bookings; there are even yearly prizes for those who do the best. But it’s not just about competition - they also spend time going through learnings, and the properties with the highest share of direct bookings share how they’ve managed to drive that month’s impressive performance.

Using retargeting to complement metasearch performance

Capturing the audience that has already visited a website is a key part of ensuring continued direct bookings - something that Kingston have definitely seen in their time working with Triptease, with retargeting campaigns driving over 116% more bookings than last year. After doing all the hard work of getting customers to visit their direct website the first time, Siddhesh knows that those people will often still have the property in mind. When Triptease’s targeted ads remind them of their previous search, they’re encouraged to complete the booking on one of Kingston’s direct websites.

In Siddhesh’s words: “The (retargeting) numbers are speaking - we can see the bookings coming through, and it’s also improving compared to the same time last year”.

Looking Ahead

With the help of Siddhesh’s direct booking expertise, Kingston Group plans to continue focusing on improving parity, and continually growing their share of direct revenue. With a solid foundation in place, and the support of Triptease’s expert team and tools, the group is poised to continue as a leader in the Thai hospitality landscape.