Skip to main content
contact@saltsilicon.com

Salt & Silicon

Boutique hotels · DMCs · tourism operators

Tourism and hospitality marketing: For tourism.

Marketing, content and AI for boutique hotels, DMCs, tour operators and DMOs.

01 The tourism marketing problem

Tourism marketing differentiation: Everyone looks the same. The cheapest one gets the booking.

OTAs skim 15 to 35% from the booking economics. Reviews live on Google and OTA platforms. AI answers quote whoever ranks first. Every property page reads like the last one.

Based in Barcelona, a city that runs on tourism, we have been inside these operations. We design the marketing, content, booking and AI infrastructure that separates a tourism brand from the surrounding noise.

€15-35 lost on every €100 OTA booking before delivery costs Margin leakage
15-35% lost to OTA economics and platform dependency
70% of DMOs run marketing in-house, alone
4-6% of revenue, the whole marketing budget

Sources

OTA economics 15–35%: GOTT DATA notes.

Marketing budget 4–6% of revenue: Gartner CMO Spend Survey 2024.

01 Services

The work we do.

The work changes by operator. These are the usual surfaces.

01

Brand and content

Property and destination writing
  • Property page rewrites with a distinct voice and specific detail
  • Destination guides and local content that earn organic search traffic
  • Brand voice and tone-of-voice documentation
  • Photography briefs and visual direction for seasonal campaigns
Brand and visual identity
  • Full brand identity: logo, colours, typography
  • Website design and launch
  • Social media templates and asset libraries
  • Print materials: menus, in-room guides, welcome packs
02

Growth and discovery

SEO, AEO and GEO
  • Technical SEO audit for tourism and hospitality sites
  • GEO visibility check: how your property appears in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude
  • Content that ranks before the OTA listing does
  • Google Business Profile strategy and optimisation
  • Local and destination keyword architecture
Shoulder season and events
  • Shoulder season content calendar: content that converts when occupancy is soft
  • Event and group inquiry funnels
  • Package creation and pricing strategy for low-demand periods
  • Targeted campaigns for domestic versus international audiences
03

Booking and guest journey

Direct booking infrastructure
  • Booking flow audit and conversion rate optimisation
  • Direct booking versus OTA dependency analysis
  • Landing pages for specific room types, packages and seasonal offers
  • Bókun, Rezdy and FareHarbor setup or integration cleanup
  • Custom apps around each operator's booking and guest workflow
  • Email capture strategy integrated into the guest journey
  • Abandonment recovery sequences for incomplete bookings
Guest journey and retention
  • Pre-arrival sequence: confirmation, anticipation, upsell
  • Post-stay follow-up and review solicitation
  • Customer support flows for WhatsApp, email, web chat and group enquiries
  • Private and group custom experience funnels
  • Re-engagement campaign for lapsed guests
  • Loyalty programme design (simple, no platform required)
  • Referral programme setup
04

AI and operations

Automation and workflows
  • Guest communication automations: instant responses, pre-arrival flows
  • Customer support triage for common questions, reschedules and special requests
  • Review management automations
  • Reporting dashboards: live occupancy, booking source, revenue per channel
  • Intake and inquiry handling without manual re-entry
  • Private and group custom experience workflows
  • Seasonal staff onboarding: documented AI workflows they can follow without a manual
AI governance for hospitality
  • One-page AI governance policy for hospitality teams
  • Tool audit: kill redundant subscriptions, fill operational gaps
  • Prompt libraries calibrated for your property voice
  • Monthly AI briefing relevant to hospitality
Boutique hotels · DMCs · tourism operators

Proven patterns from wine estates, boutique hotels, DMCs, operators, resellers, OTAs and car-rental workflows in nine countries.

Start
02 Packages

Three ways to start.

Most tourism operators we meet arrive in one of three situations. Pick the one that fits yours.

01 2 weeks

Destination audit

Situation You suspect your direct booking rate could be higher. You do not know what is blocking it.

  • Full audit: site, SEO, GEO visibility, booking flow, guest journey, AI readiness
  • Direct booking versus OTA dependency analysis
  • Ranked list of the 10 highest-value fixes

Outcome A clear picture of where money is going to the OTA and what to reclaim first.

See the audit page
02 1-2 weeks

Destination sprint

Situation You have a setup already. It needs to convert, connect, or support guests better.

  • Revamp an existing booking flow, landing page, campaign, integration, or automation. Scoped on the kickoff call.
  • Bókun, Rezdy, FareHarbor, CRM and support workflows connected around the actual operation.
  • Designed, written and live inside one to two weeks.
  • 30 days post-launch support.

Outcome A sharper page, campaign, booking flow, support process, or custom system. Tracked from day one.

03 Month to month

Destination retainer

Situation Shoulder season starts in six weeks. Hiring a growth team takes six months.

  • Ongoing monthly support: content, SEO, guest retention, AI workflows, GEO maintenance
  • Same two people every month
  • Scales up or down, no lock-in

Outcome A consistent growth team without the overhead or the six-month hiring timeline. Cancel any time.

03 How it works

Work directly with the founders.

Diagnostic call

30 minutes. You describe what is failing. We tell you what we would fix first and why. You leave with a ranked list you can use, whether we work together or not.

Scope and proposal

One page within 48 hours. Fixed scope, clear outcome. No decks, no committees, nothing that needs a second meeting to explain.

We get to work

We work in two-week cycles. By the end of the first cycle, something is live.

We stay

We check the numbers after launch. If a booking flow is not converting, we iterate. If a sequence is underperforming, we rewrite it. We do not disappear after delivery.

Proof
What's next

Two founders. Operators at heart.

The people who diagnose the problem design the solution. Book a 30-minute call.

Bring your property, your booking numbers, your shoulder season plan. We will tell you where the money is going and what to fix first.

06 Questions

Before you ask.

We already work with an OTA. Why do we need you?

OTAs can take 15-35% from the booking economics once commission, visibility costs and platform dependency are counted. Across a full season, those fees add up to a second staff salary.

We design the direct booking infrastructure that reduces that dependency: SEO, GEO, email capture and a booking flow that converts before a guest ever lands on Booking.com.

We are a small operator. Is this relevant for us?

Most of our best work is for small operators. You move faster than chains, you can differentiate by personality rather than category and even a 10% shift toward direct bookings changes the numbers at your scale.

We tried an agency before. They did not understand hospitality.

One of us ran revenue and ICT at a tour operator in Iceland for seven years, working across operators, resellers, OTAs, car rentals, partnerships and internal operations tooling. We know what a booking system has to survive. We know what the shoulder season does to a plan. We are not guessing.

What is GEO and why does it matter for us?

Generative Engine Optimisation. Travellers increasingly start their search inside ChatGPT, Perplexity and similar tools.

If your property or destination does not appear in those answers, you are invisible before the guest reaches a booking platform. We audit GEO visibility as part of every destination audit.

How do you improve direct bookings for hotels?

Direct bookings improve when three things work together: a booking flow that does not leak (fast, mobile-optimised, clear pricing), a reason to book direct rather than on an OTA (a best-rate guarantee, exclusive extras, or a loyalty signal) and traffic that does not depend entirely on Google Ads or Booking.com.

We audit all three in the audit phase.

What does a hotel SEO audit cover?

A destination SEO audit covers five areas: technical health (site speed, mobile, crawlability), on-page signals (title tags, headings, schema markup for rooms and offers), local SEO (Google Business Profile, map pack visibility), GEO visibility (how your property appears in AI-generated travel answers from ChatGPT and Perplexity) and content gaps (what travellers search for that your site does not answer).

We deliver a ranked fix list. Most properties have five to ten high-impact fixes that require no budget, only time.

Who does the work?

Thomas and Desh, based in Barcelona. No account managers, no junior handoffs.

We scope every engagement, do the work and stay after launch. Learn more on the about page.