[CX]
// The market in three numbers
77 per cent
of all trips are planned with at least one service booked online, and the share keeps rising. VIR Daten & Fakten 2026 ↗
12 to 28 per cent
commission is what a booking through a portal costs. Direct distribution averages 3.5 per cent. D-EDGE Direct Distribution Report 2025 ↗
81 per cent
of online bookings are abandoned. The industry’s biggest revenue reserve sits in its own booking journey. SaleCycle ↗
// Five situations from travel
Sentences we hear often. Perhaps yours too.
These five situations come up again and again in conversations with tour operators, hotels and travel providers. Every one of them can be solved. For each, we show you the lever we build, evidence that it holds, and what the topic means for everyone at the table.
01Get booking journeys to completion
02Strengthen direct bookings
03Match offers to the travel occasion
04Turn one-time guests into repeat bookers
05Bring guest data into one view
// 01 · Situation“People search with us. And book somewhere else.”
Situation
The booking journey in travel is the longest in e-commerce: travel dates, options, extras, personal details, payment. At every step people drop out who actually wanted to book. Four out of five bookings are lost that way, and many of them end up with a portal later.
Lever
A booking journey that carries: fewer steps, transparent total prices early rather than late, saved searches and shortlists, mobile first. Plus a testing programme that measures every change on real bookers.
Relevant for
CMOEvery point of completion rate gained is marketing budget that finally arrives.
CFOThe booking journey is the cheapest revenue lever in the house.
CIOPrice transparency early in the journey is a system question, not a design question.
// 02 · Situation“The portals sell our trips. And take their cut.”
Situation
Visibility through portals is valuable, but it has a price: double-digit commissions, someone else’s customer data, someone else’s rules. The larger the portal share, the smaller your room for price, margin and relationship. The direct channel does not replace portals. It balances them.
Lever
A direct channel that can compete: a booking journey at portal level, benefits for direct bookers only you can give, and a guest profile that turns the first booking into a relationship. Portals stay the shop window, the booking happens with you.
Relevant for
CEOThe portal share is a strategic figure, not a sales statistic.
CFOEvery booking moved into the direct channel cuts distribution cost by double-digit points.
CMODirect bookers are the only guests whose relationship belongs to you.
// 03 · Situation“Every visitor sees the same offer.”
Situation
The city-break searcher sees the same homepage as the family with a summer holiday in mind, the repeat booker the same as the first-time visitor. In travel the occasion is everything. Recognise it and you sell. Ignore it and you show catalogues.
Lever
Personalisation by travel occasion and behaviour: content, offers and recommendations follow search patterns, season and history. The layer sits across website, app and email without replacing the booking systems.
Relevant for
CMOThe travel occasion is the strongest segment there is.
CDOSearch patterns and history are data you already have, they are simply unused.
CEOThe big platforms test thousands of times a year. The gap grows or shrinks depending on whether you play.
// 04 · Situation“Our guests book once. And never again.”
Situation
The booking was fine, the holiday was lovely, and the next trip still goes through a portal. Without recognition and an incentive, every guest is a new customer, year after year. Yet nobody is easier to win than someone who has already booked.
Lever
Retention as a system: recognition through the guest profile, re-engagement after drop-offs and after the trip, and a benefit programme for direct bookers with incentives that fit the journey rather than the watering can.
Relevant for
CMORe-engagement is the campaign with the warmest audience.
CFOA repeat booker costs a fraction of a new customer.
CEORetention decides whether growth comes from substance or from ad budget.
// 05 · Situation“Every system knows a piece of the guest.”
Situation
The booking engine knows the trip, the PMS knows the stay, the newsletter tool knows the opens, and the portal keeps its data entirely. Nobody holds a complete picture of the guest. So every personalisation, every programme and every analysis stays patchwork.
Lever
A guest profile as the foundation: bookings, stays, preferences and touchpoints in one place, fed from the existing systems through interfaces. Reports today, forecasts and AI tomorrow.
Relevant for
CDOThe guest profile is the data initiative with the most direct revenue impact.
CIOInterfaces instead of a system change: PMS and engine stay, the profile is added.
CMOKnow the guest and you do not have to buy them again every year.
// Stakeholder Briefing · Travel & Tourism
Five situations.
Five individual perspectives at the table.
Digital projects in tourism rarely fail on the concept. They fail because stakeholders and decision-makers ask many different questions and need different answers. Our Stakeholder Briefing gives you all five perspectives on each of these situations. So you can not only propose the topic internally, but drive it and argue for it.
The briefing is unlocked.
Go to the Stakeholder Briefing// Stack
Technologies other travel providers rely on.
We are technology-agnostic. Which platform fits you is something we clarify in the first conversation.
[CX]
[CX]
// Clients
Projects we speak from.
The five situations above come from projects, not from papers. We show a selection publicly and the rest in conversation.