Hotel Granville, a story of success!

How Granville Hotel Transformed Its Metasearch Strategy to Boost Revenue and Visibility.

In the rapidly evolving hospitality sector, establishing a distinctive online presence and maintaining optimal control over distribution costs are essential foundations for long-term success.

One independent hotel, Granville Hotel, exemplified this through a strategic and agile metasearch transformation—evolving from a Pay-Per-Stay (PPS) model to a performance-driven Pay-Per-Click (PPC) approach, and ultimately amplifying results with the integration of destination ads. The outcome: increased direct bookings, greater control over spend, and enhanced brand visibility in an increasingly competitive marketplace. The Pay-Per-Stay (PPS) model is no longer available, having been discontinued by Google following its initial rollout during the Covid period.

Phase 1: Starting with PPS - A Safe Yet Eventually Costly Entry

The hotel’s initial metasearch campaigns leveraged the Pay-Per-Stay (PPS) model on Google Hotel Ads—an accessible route that aligned spend with guest stays, minimising upfront costs and risk.

This model enabled the team to boost the hotel’s visibility in competitive markets and secure valuable new bookings, laying early groundwork for sustainable growth. However, as volume ramped up and acquisition costs accumulated, it soon became clear that escalating commissions were eroding margins and restricting the hotel’s ability to scale performance

Phase 2: Transition to the PPC Model - Regaining Control and Margin

With a focus on strategic growth and profitability, the hotel advanced to a Pay-Per-Click (PPC) model across leading metasearch platforms, including Tripadvisor, Google Hotel Ads, and Trivago. This approach empowered the team to invest in acquiring high-intent guests, enabling real-time bid optimisation, precise segmentation, and dynamic budget allocation.

By leveraging data and adapting to live demand and seasonality, the hotel optimised campaign performance, strengthened its direct booking channel, and created a strong foundation for long-term, sustainable success.

This move allowed the hotel to:

• Lower acquisition costs by optimising bids.
• Gain more visibility for high-intent searches.
• Target and adjust strategies based on performance data.
• Increase direct bookings by steering users to the hotel’s official website.

The impact was immediate and measurable. Gaining precision over audience targeting and dynamic budget management, the hotel began extracting greater value from every metasearch investment.

While the shift to PPC introduced a learning curve and demanded more hands-on optimisation, the rewards soon followed. With methodical campaign refinement, Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) rose markedly, and the team at Bookassist developed a deeper understanding of evolving guest preferences and seasonality trends—translating data-driven insight into smarter acquisition, stronger brand visibility, and scalable direct booking growth.

Phase 3: Going Beyond Traditional  Metasearch - Boosting Visibility with Destination Ads

To drive the next phase of metasearch growth, the hotel strategically adopted destination ads—high-impact placements that reach travellers searching for hotels in a specific location before they have chosen a property. This powerful approach allowed the hotel to capture qualified demand higher in the funnel, increase brand visibility, and influence travellers at the critical research stage of their booking journey.

By appearing alongside OTAs and other hotels in popular searches for their destination, the hotel:

• Expanded reach to new potential guests in the research phase.
• Improved brand exposure among travellers comparing options in their area.
• Strengthened the top of the funnel, feeding their PPC campaigns with warmer traffic and drive more traffic to their direct booking channel

Initial results have been promising. Destination Ads generated a new stream of traffic that complemented existing metasearch campaigns. While the cost per lead was slightly higher, the long-term brand visibility and increase in direct search volume suggested stronger brand recognition and future booking potential.

+73% Traffic

Our optimised metasearch strategy drove a +73% traffic increase. Targeted ads placed our Waterford hotel at the top of search results, dramatically improving our visibility for new travellers.

+27% Bookings

This enhanced visibility led directly to a +27% uplift in bookings, successfully converting searches for Waterford hotels into profitable, direct revenue for Granville Hotel.

Key Takeaways and Results

• Reduced average commission cost: The move from PPS to PPC allowed the hotel to cut commission fees.
• Improved ROI : With better control over budget and targeting, the hotel achieved higher ROAS in 2025 on Google Hotel Ads (+38%) and similar performance across other platforms.
• Broader visibility: Destination ads helped the hotel capture new audiences early in the decision-making process.

Conclusion

What began as a cautious PPS campaign matured into an expertly orchestrated, multi-dimensional marketing strategy—demonstrating the power of adaptability in today’s hospitality landscape. This hotel’s metasearch journey is a prime example of the industry’s shift away from high-commission, inflexible models toward intelligent, data-led performance strategies.

By progressing from PPS to PPC and integrating destination ads, the hotel not only reduced acquisition costs but also significantly amplified its brand presence throughout every critical stage of the guest’s booking journey. The focus on granular data analysis and proactive optimisation enabled the team to deliver stronger results, ensuring the brand stood out and delivered exceptional value across the entire customer journey.

Hotels looking to maximise their direct revenue should consider a similar path—starting with manageable risk, then building toward a fully optimised, multi-channel metasearch strategy with control, visibility, and profitability at its core.

This journey underscores an important lesson for independent hotels: metasearch isn’t just about being present — it’s about being strategic. The right mix of models and channels, backed by data and constant optimisation, can turn metasearch into one of the most profitable direct booking engines in a hotel’s digital marketing arsenal.

About Bookassist

As a trusted partner to the international hospitality industry, Bookassist drives sustainable profitability across the customer journey by combining expertise, strategy, data and technology. We believe that direct business is the heart of every hotel's strategy and we ensure our clients achieve the best from their direct business by delivering constant innovation through our people and our technology.

The Granville Hotel's success was achieved with our top-tier Scale package, providing the complete omni-channel visibility needed to dominate their market.

At Bookassist, we offer a full "Path to Success" ; with packages from  Start, Grow, and Expand all the way to Scale, we have a solution designed to fit any hotel's budget and strategic goals.

If you’re not currently working with Bookassist, but would like to hear more about the value we could drive for your business, simply contact us and a member of the team will be in touch soon!