· visibility at the point of choiceMcKinsey Quarterly · 2009
Around two thirds of what influences choice during comparison is not advertising, but reviews and other people's experiences.
Elutio · for hotels
Your future guest has already been sold the idea of a holiday by airlines, booking platforms and the entire travel industry. We work so that at the point of choice — on Booking, Google, Tripadvisor and in AI recommendations — they choose your hotel.
In brief
Booking, Google Maps, Tripadvisor and Agoda — your profiles are complete, active and convincing compared with nearby hotels in your destination.
A steady flow of high-quality reviews from real guests, with a professional response to every one of them — including the difficult ones.
Guests increasingly ask AI for a ready-made shortlist of hotels. For the key searches related to your destination, your hotel is on that list.
We work with a limited number of hotels and never with your direct competitors in the same destination.
How guests choose
A holiday begins as an idea. That idea is sold by the entire travel industry: airline advertising, travel videos, booking platforms and other people's seaside photos. The idea becomes a destination — and only then does the choice of hotel begin.
And they compare with a critical eye. A holiday happens once or twice a year, costs serious money and cannot be repeated. Before booking, guests check everything: they open Booking, Google Maps and Tripadvisor, read reviews — especially the negative ones — and see how the hotel responds. Increasingly, they simply ask AI to put together a shortlist.
Guests compare with a critical eye — and choose the hotel that looks impeccable everywhere they check.
One recent review saying, "We checked in and the room smelled of cigarette smoke," left unanswered can be enough for a family with children to choose the hotel next door — even if your pool and breakfast are better.
Demand for your destination has already been created and paid for. The only question is which hotel gets the guest.
What Elutio does
We analyse how your hotel appears across the key platforms and in AI recommendations, alongside competing hotels in your destination. We assess ratings, reviews, management responses, photography and the completeness of your profiles. The outcome is a document with figures and findings — not a sales presentation.
Your profiles on Booking, Google Maps, Tripadvisor and Agoda become complete, consistent and up to date. Your facilities, descriptions and key strengths are presented clearly and consistently wherever guests look.
We establish a consistent flow of detailed reviews from genuine guests and distribute them across the platforms that matter. Not five-star ratings without any text, but authentic guest experiences that help the next traveller make a confident decision.
Including the difficult ones. Calmly, respectfully and with clear ownership of the issue. So that the next guest sees competent management rather than a generic template response.
You see your hotel through your guests' eyes: changes in ratings, recurring themes in reviews and comparisons with nearby competitors. The work of your team, once invisible to outsiders, becomes visible — both online and in the figures presented in the report.
For a hotel manager, this report becomes a ready-made performance indicator. The results of your decisions are reflected not in words, but in measurable changes to the numbers guests can see.
A special case
When a strong new hotel opens nearby — an international brand with new rooms and a substantial launch budget — it will naturally attract a significant share of guests. Competing directly with its novelty is almost impossible.
What you can compete with is something a newly opened hotel cannot build in its first season: visible, accumulated proof of quality. The ideal time to begin is the season before it opens. We'll discuss how to prepare during your audit.
What to expect
Reputation accumulates. The first noticeable improvements often appear after two or three months, sometimes sooner, but lasting results come only through consistent, ongoing work.
Once established, your reputation continues to work for your hotel for a long time afterwards.
Here are two effects that a well-established reputation creates:
Guests arrive via maps, booking platforms, reviews and AI — and keep coming across your hotel again and again. By the time they are ready to book, much of the trust has already been established: they book instead of continuing to compare.
When the market grows, hotels like yours receive more bookings, and those bookings grow faster than the market itself. When the market declines, your guest flow falls more slowly than everyone else's — and once again, the redistribution works in your hotel's favour.
Over time, consistent work can also open the way to recognition from the platforms themselves — awards such as Tripadvisor Travelers' Choice, received by less than 1% of properties, or the Booking Traveller Review Awards. This is neither a promise nor a quick result, but it creates an additional layer of trust that every guest can see.
The economics
Every booking made through Booking, Agoda and other OTAs comes at a price — the platform's commission. For many hotels, this is one of their most painful operating costs: the better business becomes, the more money goes to intermediaries.
At the point of choice, there are channels that lead guests directly to your hotel. Google Maps is virtually the only major platform where guests can see the hotel's direct contact details: its official website, telephone number and messaging options. AI recommendations also direct guests to your website rather than to an intermediary's page.
We do not suggest abandoning OTAs — they provide guest flow, visibility and convenience. You already receive direct bookings today. But when your hotel has a strong Google presence and AI recommends you for location-based searches, the share of guests who book directly increases. Dependence on commissions does not disappear, but it decreases, and over time your acquisition cost structure gradually shifts in your favour.
Every guest who comes directly from Google or through an AI recommendation is a commission-free booking.
Why this works
This has been confirmed by the market's largest research studies. In travel, the mechanism is especially pronounced: guests are travelling somewhere unfamiliar, cannot verify anything in advance, and do not want to risk their holiday.
McKinsey Quarterly · 2009
Around two thirds of what influences choice during comparison is not advertising, but reviews and other people's experiences.
Google / Shopper Sciences · 2011
In travel, 99% of guests make their decision based on what they find about you online. This is the highest figure of any industry.
Harvard Business Review · 2010
Companies spend 70–90% of their budget on advertising — while the decision is formed during comparison and after the trip.
Next step
We follow the journey of your future guest: how the hotel appears on Booking, Google, Tripadvisor and in AI responses — alongside neighbouring hotels in the same location.
Not a presentation, but an audit with findings. A recent audit of a spa hotel revealed 48 justified complaints left unanswered and a surcharge that had angered guests for two years running.
Alongside the audit, you receive a specific proposal: what we recommend doing, in what order and how much it will cost. Not only a picture of what is happening, but a ready-made action plan.