Nepal
The real problem for most Nepali hotels is not visibility, it is paying Booking.com and Agoda 15 to 20 percent commission on bookings that direct marketing could have captured for less.
Most Nepali hotels already get bookings through Booking.com and Agoda, paying roughly 15 to 20 percent commission on each one. The real opportunity is shifting a share of that volume to direct bookings through Google Hotel Ads, a fast booking-enabled website, and Meta Ads targeted at the specific source markets a property actually draws from. Arcetis builds this as a managed system, not a one-off campaign, with over $200,000 in managed Google ad spend behind the approach.
A hotel or guesthouse in Pokhara, Kathmandu, or Chitwan rarely has a visibility problem, Booking.com and Agoda already put the property in front of travelers planning a trip to Nepal. The actual cost is commission: 15 to 20 percent of the room rate on every OTA booking, which on a property running near capacity during peak trekking or tourist season is a large, ongoing line item that direct bookings would avoid entirely.
Digital marketing for a hotel here is mostly about shifting the mix, not replacing OTAs outright, few properties can or should go fully direct. Google Hotel Ads puts the property's own booking engine next to the OTA listings at the exact moment someone is comparing prices. Meta Ads can target past guests for repeat stays, or specific international markets a property historically draws from, well before the trip-planning search even starts. Both need a booking engine on the hotel's own site that does not feel slower or less trustworthy than the OTA checkout it is competing against.
Nepal's tourism demand is sharply seasonal, October through November and March through April carry most trekking and sightseeing traffic, with a different, quieter pattern the rest of the year. A hotel's ad spend and messaging need to move with that curve: pushing hard on direct-booking offers in the two months before peak season, shifting to off-season domestic or conference and event audiences when international arrivals thin out, rather than running the same campaign year-round at the same budget.
We build the media plan around the property's actual booking calendar from past seasons, not a generic monthly spend, because a flat budget either overspends in the slow months or underspends right before the properties with better pacing fill up first.
A traveler clicking a Google Hotel Ad or a Meta Ad still checks TripAdvisor, Google, and Booking.com reviews before confirming, ad spend that drives clicks to a property with thin or unanswered reviews converts worse than it should. We set up a structured system for requesting reviews from recent guests and responding to the negative ones professionally, because an unanswered bad review does more damage than the review itself.
For properties that rely heavily on walk-in and last-minute bookings during peak season, common in Lakeside Pokhara and Thamel, we also set up Google Business Profile correctly with accurate photos and real-time availability signals, since a large share of last-minute hotel searches happen on mobile, minutes before someone needs a room.
Rarely, no. OTAs bring real discovery value, especially for first-time visitors to Nepal who trust a familiar booking platform. The realistic goal is shifting a meaningful share of bookings to direct channels to reduce commission costs, not eliminating OTA dependence altogether.
Commission rates on platforms like Booking.com and Agoda typically run in the 15 to 20 percent range per booking, which is why even a modest shift toward direct bookings has a real impact on margin for a property running close to capacity in peak season.
Yes, significantly. Peak trekking and sightseeing months need a different budget, message, and audience than the quieter off-season, when domestic travelers, events, or longer-stay guests become a more realistic focus. We plan spend around the property's actual seasonal booking curve.
Yes, we build or integrate a booking engine on the hotel's own site as part of the project, since Google Hotel Ads and Meta Ads only work as direct-booking channels if there is a fast, trustworthy booking flow for them to send traffic to.