Let's start with the truth...

Most hotels aren't losing bookings because they did something wrong.

They're losing because Google quietly changed how hotel search works.

Earlier this year, we worked with a beautiful 5-star boutique hotel in Santorini - ocean views, perfect reviews, fully booked every Summer.

Then suddenly, from around January traffic to their website collapsed.

From around 5,000 visits a month to just over 1,000.

Their rooms hadn't changed. Their staff hadn't changed. Their reputation was better than ever...

But their bookings? Gone.

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What changed? Well in early 2025, Google rolled out a major change...

Instead of showing hotels websites directly in search results, Google started prioritising:

- AI Overviews "best hotels in...(whichever city)"

- Google’s own Hotel ads

- OTA listings (Booking, Expedia and others)

This hotel had invested in SEO for years. But now, it's no longer about keywords or backlinks and instead it's about being an entity Google trusts.

That trust comes from three main things:

1. Clean structure: (FAQs, reviews, images labelled correctly)

2. Authority mentions (press, blogs, wedding or travel publications)

3. Real engagement (social media content, reviews, brand searches)

Without those, even great hotels can become obsolete over time.

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So what did we do here?... For this Santorini hotel, we decided to help the hotel rebuild visibility from the ground up:

Step 1. Create cinematic visuals that stop travellers from scrolling

We're talking drone footage, couple storytelling, emotionally-driven videos - content that journalists and social platforms want to feature.

Step 2: run smart online campaigns

Don't just upload a pretty video that doesn't show anything about the hotel...

In this case, we used Meta and google ads to target honeymooners, and luxury travellers - the kind of guests who normally find you through OTAs.

Step 3: Rebuild "trust signals"

Structure the data on your website. Multilingual pages. Review prompts

All these small details tell Google that this is a legitimate, active and high quality website.

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👉 And what happened after this? After around 6 - 10 weeks, this Santorini hotel's visibility began to climb again. 🔥

Social engagement went up.

Their name started appearing in new travel blogs.

And most importantly: direct bookings were returning.

...none of this was instantly. But steadily.

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💡 Hotels aren't doing anything wrong. Just the rules have changed.

Those who adapt now will win more first clicks and visibility

Those who don't will keep paying 15-20% to OTAs.

Cause Google's not going back. The only way forward is to build a brand that's impossible to ignore - both by people and the algorithms.

Have you seen a similar drop in direct since January? What actually helped (or didn’t)?

Google changed hotel search in 2025 - here's why bookings have dipped