On February 6, 2025, Triptease partnered with Paraty Tech to host a webinar: "The 2025 Direct Booking Playbook: Winning at Digital Marketing & Metasearch." We brought Triptease co-founder Charlie Osmond and Paraty Tech Marketing Director Pedro Calvo Roldán together to explore key marketing trends for 2025, developments in metasearch, and actionable marketing tactics to help hotels thrive in the evolving digital landscape.
Let’s dive into the 2025 direct booking landscape – and how your hotel can succeed this year
6 2025 marketing trends hotels should pay attention to
1. Ditching the blanket discount: experience-based loyalty programs
Hotels are shifting away from generic member rates and points to experience-based rewards that make the most of their local area and don’t require customers to spend years building up benefits. According to a McKinsey study, 71% of consumers expect personalized interactions. This is a great way to deliver them, encouraging direct bookings without offering blanket discounts.
The Virgin Hotels loyalty program "The Know" does this very well by delighting guests with ultra-personalized benefits – like being able to enter personal details for their furry friends for added touches.
2. Revenue Beyond the Room: Capitalizing on your other amenities
Hotels are no longer just places to sleep – so why market them as such? Successful properties are expanding their revenue streams beyond room bookings by upselling ancillaries and amenities. This can mean updating booking and check-in flows to encourage guests to take advantage of added benefits – or even using partners to promote services to non–guests in your area. Smart hoteliers are also including non-room amenities in more of their marketing, including paid search campaigns.
One way that hotels are attracting non-resident guests to their spas is by using companies like Resortpass to drive day-pass bookings. This can increase non-room revenue, with little added spend.
3. Leaning into experiential travel
86% of millennials prefer to travel for experiences rather than traditional sightseeing (Bloomberg). Hotels that highlight unique, experience-led stays are capturing more direct bookings. Why not look into partnering with local attractions for more exposure to guests, or highlighting these attractions in your marketing efforts?
McKinsey research shows that booking agencies have seen a shift in recent years from room bookings making up the majority of their revenue, to experiences and accommodation contributing equally.
4. Using AI in marketing: Smart targeting & personalization
AI is revolutionizing hotel marketing by improving guest segmentation, offer personalization, and automated engagement. AI-powered insights allow hotels to reach the right guests at the right time, and with the right messages.
“In a year or so, it’s going to be like Netflix. When you turn on the TV, you know Netflix is going to personalize the content – they already know what you want to watch. Hotels are going to be able to do the same - especially with repeat guests.” - Pedro Calvo Roldán
While currently this type of hyper-personalization may be easier for a massive, tech-forward company like Netflix to achieve, the technology is getting more accessible each day.
5. AI-Powered content strategies for SEO success
Hotels are using AI tools to generate high-quality, localized content and drive more direct traffic. By implementing AI-drive content strategies, hotels are improving search rankings and authority without spending too much time or money.
Westgate Resorts are a great example of a hotel who have built an AI-led content strategy, and consistently rank high organically in search results. Learn how they’ve achieved this success.
6. Marketing optimization: Applying new trends to your existing channels
Make the most of these new tools for success by using new tech to power proven channels like display retargeting, paid search, and metasearch. This could mean displaying personalized ads in your retargeting ads, or including non-room ads in your paid search strategy.
For one example, Triptease’s automated retargeting ads personalize in real time—showing the best rate to undecided guests and dynamic pricing for those with search dates. And as we know, relevant, personalized content boosts conversion rate significantly.
Optimizing your marketing efforts across all channels is so important – and in metasearch, it can mean the difference between winning against OTAs, or losing out to undercuts and more sophisticated bidding techniques.
Metasearch in 2025: More uncertainty, but more opportunity. How does your strategy stack up?
Metasearch continues to evolve rapidly, and we’re already seeing a lot happening this year. Here’s a quick overview of the latest news in metasearch.
- Decreased January Search Volumes: Google searches were down 10% year-over-year in January due to holiday timing shifts and a continued downshift after post-pandemic “revenge travel”. It’s important for hotels to adjust their bidding strategies throughout the rest of the year to account for this.
- Google tests: Google has been testing new formats and methods - from ultra basic posts to comply with new EU regulations to a new look for metasearch. Google is constantly in flux, ready to adjust and optimize – hotels need to keep their eye on the ball.
- The imminent end of Google’s commission bidding model – With Google removing CPA on February 20th, hotels need to make sure they (and their tech providers) have an alternative ready.
Ways for hotels to succeed on metasearch in a changing digital landscape
Automated bidding optimization
Hotels relying on manual bidding are falling behind. Automated, real-time bid adjustments are now critical for staying competitive. It’s important to work with a metasearch provider who’s using a technology-led approach, and is capable of making 1000s of targeted bid adjustments daily - based on real-time booking behavior and pricing data.
Parity automation
Online Travel agents continue undercutting hotel rates (our global hotel data indicates this happens 60% of the time). When a hotel’s direct price is the cheapest available, bookings increase by 2.5x – but it can be hard to constantly police OTAs. Tools like Triptease’s Price Match on Metasearch can help hotels regain rate parity automatically, increasing direct bookings.
Final thoughts: How hotels can succeed in 2025
Whether we’re discussing your overall digital marketing strategy or your metasearch bid optimization, it’s clear that the hospitality industry is moving fast. Hotels that embrace the newest trends, the newest tech, and the best tools to help them succeed could stand to gain a lot.
Triptease helps hotels take back control from OTAs by implementing cutting-edge direct marketing tools, including a metasearch product that uses machine learning and automation to make sure that hotels can compete on the same level as tech-forward OTAs.
Want to dive deeper into these trends and hear more from our experts? Watch the full on-demand webinar here for insights on future-proofing your direct booking strategy. Or if you want more personalized input, our dedicated team is always happy to help.
For help succeeding in 2025, get in touch with our direct booking experts using the form below
