โ˜… Travel package Book a free Travel Audit ยท The Growth System $1,097/mo ($2,197 setup) ยท live in 21 days or money back
Home  /  Niches  /  Travel & Accommodations
Niche ยท Travel & Accommodations ยท NL/EU

Take your direct bookings back.
Not via Booking.com.

For hotel owners, B&B operators, campsite managers, vacation rental hosts and glamping/retreat operators. Travel SEO from someone who built it in-house at Holidu, TUI and Belvilla โ€” and traveled full-time for 10 years as a guest. I know this market inside out: how guests search, where they get stuck, and how you stop paying 15-20% commission to Booking.

See packages
10+ years at Holidu/TUI/Belvilla Schema stack dialed in Direct-booking funnel 30-day satisfaction or refund
The Growth System for travel brands: $2,197 setup + $1,097/mo ยท multi-language site + booking funnel + travel SEO + dashboard in 1 ยท live in 21 days or money back
1
yourbrand.com/tuscany/villa-with-pool
โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…โ˜… 4.8 ยท 312 reviews ยท 14 villas ยท free cancellation
โ†‘ +30
2
booking.com/villas-tuscany
Booking.com โ€” 2,847 villas ยท 15% commission
3
airbnb.com/toscany-villas-pool
Airbnb ยท 14% host fee + 14% guest fee
4
expedia.com/villas-tuscany
Expedia Group ยท 18-25% commission
Travel SEO built in-house at
holidu TUI IKEA Belvilla vidaXL
Cost of inaction

What you pay Booking every month without noticing.

Quick math on why this isn't a "let's revisit next year" thing. The OTA commission keeps ticking โ€” every hour you're not ranking.

An average vacation rental platform with 50 bookings/month:

Bookings via Booking / Airbnb / Expedia35 / mo
Average booking valueโ‚ฌ 1,450
OTA commission (average 17%)โ‚ฌ 246 / booking
Monthly OTA commissionโ‚ฌ 8,628
Given away to OTAs per yearโ‚ฌ 103,530

An Audit Plus costs $747. If it helps you bring in half of those bookings through your own channel, you earn it back in 2 weeks. After that it's pure margin.

Recognize the pain?

Three reasons generic SEO doesn't work for travel brands.

Travel isn't "regular" e-commerce. Anyone who misses that hands you a report that looks right on paper โ€” and delivers nothing in practice.

01.
"Booking/Airbnb already own all our keywords."
Generic terms ("vacation rental Italy") are dead โ€” the OTA monoliths dominate. But long-tail intent ("vacation rental with pool for a group of 8 in Tuscany") is a gap of millions of searches they don't tune for. That's where your opening is.
02.
"Our hreflang is a Google puzzle."
12 markets, 8 languages, 200 vacation rentals โ€” and Google indexes the wrong pages for the wrong markets. Hreflang is hard; do-it-wrong-and-you-disappear hard. Holidu had the exact same problem in 2018.
03.
"Our seasonal peaks are chaos."
Tuscany in July, Alps in January, Costa Brava in May. If you only publish content for your summer peak in July, you're 14 weeks too late. Travel SEO is a forward game โ€” not a reactive one.
Four products

From 24-hour scan to Direct Booking Sprint.

Every product combines AI web dev + SEO + custom automation in one travel-specific stack โ€” fixed price, fixed deadline. Not three separate engagements with three vendors.

โ€” Product 01 ยท Lead Magnet
Travel Daily Scan ยท 24h report
Next working day a 25+ page report: top-10 travel SEO issues, OTA comparison, hreflang status, schema stack. Travel-niche specific (not a template report).
  • Technical crawl + travel schema audit (LodgingBusiness, TouristDestination)
  • Top-10 long-tail opportunities vs OTA competition
  • Hreflang readiness check for multi-market
  • 12-min Loom video with personal walkthrough
One-shot
$ 297
โ€” Product 02 ยท Tripwire
Travel Audit Plus ยท 2 weeks
In-depth technical + content audit specifically for travel platforms. Schema stack, internal link map for destinations, content gaps vs OTAs. 100% credited if you continue with The Growth System.
  • 50+ page report (handwritten, not templated)
  • Schema.org plan for accommodation + destination
  • Content gap analysis vs Booking/Airbnb/Expedia
  • Two 60-min strategy calls + 30 days of support
One-shot
$ 747
โ€” Product 03
Multi-language Hreflang Stack
EU expansion or 6+ markets? A hreflang stack that doesn't break at scale. Plus market-specific landing strategy + local content templates.
  • Hreflang for NL/EN/FR/IT/ES (extendable)
  • Geo-targeting in Search Console set up right
  • Server-side redirects + canonical strategy
  • Local content templates per market
From
โ‚ฌ 2,450
Specializations

4 sub-niches within Travel & Accommodations.

Each sub-niche has its own language, its own pains and its own audit offer. Click through to the page that's fully about your world.

6 pillars of travel SEO

What I specifically do for travel brands.

No template. For each of these six pillars I have concrete tactics that I refined at Holidu, TUI and Belvilla โ€” applied to vacation rentals, boutique hotels and accommodation platforms.

1
Long-tail destination pages
Beat Booking on niche queries
"Vacation rental with pool in Tuscany for 8 people, pets allowed" โ€” long-tail combos have lower volume per query but much higher conversion and far less competition. I build the keyword tree, decide which combos deserve their own page, and create pages that beat Booking's templates.
vacation rental tuscany pool 8 ppl2,400/moLow
villa tuscany pet-friendly880/moLow
vacation rental tuscany kid-friendly1,300/moMid
vacation rental tuscany last minute3,200/moMid
vacation rental tuscany (generic)22,000/moHigh
2
Seasonal roadmap for search volume
Plan content 4-6 months ahead
Travel search volumes peak months before the trip itself. "Summer 2026" is already being searched in January. I build a 12-month content roadmap that prepares for every peak โ€” no reactive content, just planned dominance per season.
summer peak winter peak jan apr jul oct dec
"vacation rental Tuscany" โ€” NL search volume per month
3
Multi-language & hreflang stack
One property ยท five markets
Travel is international by definition. But a misconfigured hreflang stack means duplicate content penalties and traffic routing to the wrong market. I audit and rebuild your hreflang implementation so each language version reaches the right customer โ€” without your SEO getting punished.
๐Ÿ‡ณ๐Ÿ‡ฑ NL ๐Ÿ‡ฉ๐Ÿ‡ช DE ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง EN ๐Ÿ‡ซ๐Ÿ‡ท FR ๐Ÿ‡ฎ๐Ÿ‡น IT
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="nl-NL" href="..."> <link rel="alternate" hreflang="de-DE" href="..."> <link rel="alternate" hreflang="x-default" href="...">
One villa in Tuscany โ†’ 5 language versions โ†’ 5 markets without duplicate content.
4
OTA competition strategy
Scale alongside Booking and Airbnb
You're not going to beat Booking.com on "hotel paris". But you can on "boutique hotel marais 4-star with balcony". I show you which queries OTAs are weak on, and how to build your own brand funnel so direct bookings (no commission) grow alongside your OTA volume.
Booking.com
DA 95
Airbnb
DA 91
Expedia
DA 88
Your brand
DA 42
Generic queries lost โ€” long-tail & brand-specific win.
5
Booking-funnel SEO
Inspiration โ†’ property โ†’ booking
Travelers don't Google once. They search for inspiration first ("best places in Tuscany"), then comparison ("villa vs hotel Tuscany"), then specifics ("villa name"). I map the entire funnel and make sure your brand shows up at every stage โ€” not just on the booking query.
Inspiration โ€” "best places in Tuscany"100%
Comparison โ€” "villa vs hotel Tuscany"42%
Research โ€” "villa Lucca pool"18%
Booking โ€” "Casa Bella reservation"6%
6
Trust signals & review schema
Stars in SERP ยท more clicks
Travel is high-trust: nobody books a โ‚ฌ2,000 vacation without confidence. Star ratings in Google SERP, review schema (AggregateRating, Review), TripAdvisor integrations and local signals lift your CTR by 30-50%. I configure the entire trust stack technically correctly.
Casa Bella Toscaneโ˜…โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…โ˜… 4.9
312 Google reviews ยท 178 TripAdvisor ยท from โ‚ฌ 145/night
"Beautiful villa, everything matched the description, the host was incredibly helpful..."
@type: AggregateRating
Villa Olivettaโ˜…โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…โ˜… 4.7
187 Google reviews ยท 94 TripAdvisor
@type: LodgingBusiness
Story sells

Pretty destination photos alone don't sell anymore.
Story in every pixel does.

Travelers want to know what makes the destination unique, what it's like to stay there, and why your accommodation is different from what they find on Booking. Story in product pages, schema and seasonal content โ€” not just rate tables.

How we work

14 weeks ahead. Not 14 weeks late.

Travel is a long-cycle game. Reactive work loses to Booking. We work a season ahead.

โ€” Step 01
Travel audit
Daily Scan + existing hreflang status. Which destinations are you ranking for now? Which long-tails are you leaving on the table? What is Booking doing that you aren't?
โ€” Step 02
Long-tail strategy
Top-50 long-tail destination keywords OTAs don't tune for. For each keyword, pick a page type (guide, accommodation cluster, comparison).
โ€” Step 03
Build & schema
Pages built, LodgingBusiness/TouristDestination schema, hreflang correct, internal link plan. Ready 14 weeks before your peak.
โ€” Step 04
Spike & measure
During your peak season: monitoring + tactical adjustments. Afterwards: aggregate review, lessons learned for the next season.
The comparison

GrowthMaster vs. generic SEO agency.

Honest comparison. Specialization matters โ€” for travel more than in any other niche.

Feature
GrowthMaster
Generic agency
Travel-niche knowledge
10+ years Holidu/TUI
Client-1 in travel
Schema for accommodations
LodgingBusiness, TouristDestination
Generic Article
Hreflang for 6+ markets
Server-side, scale-proof
Plugin-based, breaks
Seasonal-cycle expertise
14 weeks ahead
Reactive
OTA competition strategy
Long-tail dominance plan
"We'll see"
Direct-booking funnel
A/B tested
Not their expertise
Fixed price upfront
Yes
Open retainer
Packages ยท from entry to full-stack

One entry. One full-stack system. Fair price.

Start with a paid audit ($747) if you want to test fit. Or dive directly into The Growth System โ€” everything your travel brand needs in 1 package, live in 21 days or money back.

Entry ยท tripwire

Audit Plus

60-min audit with OTA-bypass check + 6-page report ยท concrete implementation plan for your travel brand.

  • โœ“OTA comparison (Booking/Airbnb/Expedia)
  • โœ“Travel schema stack (LodgingBusiness/TouristDestination)
  • โœ“Hreflang readiness for multi-market
  • โœ“3 quick wins you can ship this week
  • โœ“Mockup of your site with the fixes
Your investment
$ 747 one-shot
100% credited if you continue with The Growth System. 30 days satisfaction or refund.

Max 4 new travel clients per quarter โ€” I work solo, and travel onboarding only fits your seasonal demands if I have time for it. Rather 4 brands done right than 12 done halfway.

GrowthMaster ยท Travel
Travel brand growth
SEO + AI + Web design in one playbook
7 steps where the three come together 5 mistakes that cost travel brands 30-day action plan
Free playbook ยท 4-page A4 guide

How SEO, AI and web design come together for maximum results.

With just ChatGPT and a handful of SEO tricks you often do more harm than good โ€” Google detects AI content patterns and punishes rankings. Don't know how to do this right? This guide shows how it actually works.

  • 3 pillars ยท 11 concrete tactics with impact numbers
  • 90-day plan with self-check
  • Industry stats & typical funnel leaks
We email you the link ยท no spam, no follow-up calls ยท 4 pages A4
By submitting you agree to our privacy policy.
โœ“ Check your inbox The guide is in your email. Nothing within 2 minutes? Check your spam folder or open the guide directly here โ†’
Daily Scan turnaround

From order to report: 24 hours.

No discovery call, no questionnaire. Order, enter your URL, pay โ€” the report's in your inbox tomorrow.

0h / 24h 6h 12h 18h 24h TURNAROUND scan report in your inbox
0h
Order & URL submit
You pay online (โ‚ฌ 297 / in May: free), enter your domain, and optionally 1-2 specific focus areas or destinations.
2-6h
Crawl + destination mapping
Full technical crawl, hreflang validation, OTA competition analysis on your top-10 destinations.
8-16h
Seasonal & funnel analysis
Top-10 issues ranked by effort ร— impact. Seasonal roadmap, funnel coverage and trust-signal audit added.
18-22h
Record Loom walkthrough
5-minute video where I click through your site live and walk through the top-3 priorities, with examples from travel SEO in practice.
24h
Delivered to your inbox
PDF report + Loom video + checklist. No sales call, no pushy follow-up.
What I do differently

The magic is in the combination.
So is the trap.

AI & Automation, SEO and Web design are each powerful on their own. Together they deliver a growth flywheel that keeps compounding. But used wrong, AI does more harm than good โ€” and isolated SEO tricks or pretty sites without schema won't rank either. The three disciplines have to talk to each other, not around each other.

AI & Automation
Wrong
ChatGPT prompts without SEO context, publishing content whenever, leads dumped in a general inbox. Google's Helpful Content Update detects AI patterns and punishes rankings โ€” traffic drops.
Right
AI with keyword research upfront, schema in the template, lead routing & chatbot 24/7, email flows on autopilot. Content at scale in your voice ยท busywork gone.
SEO
Wrong
10 generic tips, same keywords everywhere. Slow site, no schema, no hreflang, no long-tail strategy โ€” Google won't rank you for what actually matters.
Right
Long-tail keyword tree, schema stack, hreflang correct, niche-specific content. Found by people who are actually searching โ€” without ads.
Web design
Wrong
Pretty hero, slow LCP, no social proof above the fold, generic checkout. Visitors bounce within 3 seconds.
Right
Mobile-first <2s, conversion elements in the right place, A/B testing baked in. Visitors become customers.
For people who want to do this right

Not sure how to tackle this properly?
Let's look at it together.

As an experienced online marketer, full-stack web developer, copywriter and AI expert, I'm your consultant and sparring partner โ€” no account manager, no reporting theatre, direct contact, direct delivery.

See what I do
Frequently asked questions

FAQ.

Does this work for my vacation rentals / boutique hotel / campsite / B&B?
Yes, for every accommodation type โ€” vacation rentals (even single-property), boutique hotels (3-50 rooms), campsites, glampings, B&Bs. The mechanic is the same: ranking for your specific long-tails (destination + amenity + group size) that OTAs don't optimize for.
I currently get 80% of my bookings from Booking. Can I move off it?
Fully cutting OTAs is too radical for most brands โ€” Booking delivers steady volume you can't replace overnight. Realistic goal: shift 25-40% of your bookings to direct within 12-18 months. Example: 35 bookings/month ร— โ‚ฌ1,450 ร— 17% commission = โ‚ฌ8,628/month pure margin recovered.
What if my site is small โ€” under 5k clicks/month?
Travel has high search volume and strong purchase intent โ€” even small brands can double within 6 months. Between 1k-5k clicks: Audit Plus + 1-2 long-tail content batches per quarter can quickly deliver +50-100% organic growth.
Can you help with the booking funnel itself, not just SEO?
Yes, that's part of the Direct Booking Sprint. SEO brings traffic; the site then has to convert. I work with a booking-engine specialist for checkout flows, or we A/B test your existing flow directly (Mews, Cloudbeds, Smoobu, custom build).
What's the difference between you and a large SEO agency?
A large agency has 1-2 people spending 30% of their time on travel, plus 10 who have never looked at it. With me you get 100% someone who knows the travel niche inside out. That matters for: schema choices, hreflang edge cases, OTA tactical intelligence.
Are you a former Booking employee now advising independently?
No, my experience is on the "challenger" side: Holidu (vacation rental platform challenging Booking on metasearch), TUI (own channel vs OTAs), Belvilla (DTC vacation rental). I know how Booking works from the perspective of a brand that competes with them โ€” not as an insider.
How do I measure that it works?
Four metrics: (1) Direct-channel bookings, (2) Organic clicks via GSC, (3) Share of direct vs OTA in total booking mix, (4) Average booking value via direct (often higher than via OTA). First lift in 6-8 weeks, main impact in months 4-6.
Do I get a guarantee?
No ranking or traffic guarantee โ€” those depend on Google updates and your implementation, so it would be dishonest to promise. What I do offer: a 30-day satisfaction guarantee on the Sprint and Audit Plus. Not happy with the roadmap or delivery? Full refund โ€” your call. Plus for Site in 1 week: live within 14 days or setup fee back (delivery, which I control 100%). Still not where you want to be after a Sprint? I work for a free month to find the fix.
Kelly Kap โ€” freelance specialist for travel & accommodations
About GrowthMaster

10+ years of travel & e-commerce SEO. Three big brands. One focus.

I started my SEO career in-house at Holidu โ€” vacation rental search behavior at scale, one of the most competitive verticals online. Then senior SEO roles at TUI (package travel, multi-country) and Belvilla (vacation rentals, multi-country, hreflang across millions of pages). Three travel problems at enterprise scale.

What I learned there about destination keyword strategy, seasonal content planning, hreflang on millions of pages and OTA competition I now apply as an independent consultant to DTC travel brands โ€” vacation rentals, boutique hotels, accommodation platforms. Direct contact, direct delivery.

10+
years of travel & e-com SEO
3
major travel brands in-house
Full-stack
web developer
AI
automation & LLMs expert
What clients say

Reviews from brands that actually grow.

Kelly has worked for and with major e-commerce and DTC brands โ€” Holidu, TUI, IKEA, vidaXL, Sprinter, J&J.

โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…
"With Kelly on the team our technical SEO finally lined up with what a platform of our scale needs. She spots patterns you don't find in dashboards."
J
Jana
Holidu
โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…
"We thought our multi-language setup was fine. Kelly showed where we were losing 30% of organic traffic to bad hreflang and translation spam. Two months later: fixed and growing."
T
Thierry
Belvilla
โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…
"In outdoor and sport, understanding both SEO and CRO isn't optional โ€” it's required. Kelly is the only consultant I've seen do both at the same time without one suffering."
I
Inge
Sprinter Sports
โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…
"At VidaXL scale, generic SEO advice is worthless. Kelly built an AI content pipeline that kept quality across thousands of product pages. No template spam โ€” real SEO impact."
F
Filine
VidaXL
Plus these niches

Also working with specialty travel, retreats & tour operators.

Same mechanic โ€” destination, season, hreflang and direct bookings independent of OTAs.

Specialty travel โ€” mountain road trip Specialty travel
Retreats โ€” kayak on the water Retreats & experiences
Outdoor tour operator gear Tour operators
โ˜… Included in every package

Plus: your own branded dashboard.

Every GrowthMaster client gets a white-labeled KPI dashboard with their own logo, colors and domain. Realtime visibility on what we do for you โ€” no more PDF reports.

  • White-label: your logo + brand colors + custom domain
  • Multi-source: GA4 + Stripe + Calendly + custom CRM
  • Goal tracking + alerts via Slack/email
  • Live in 14 days, mobile + desktop responsive
See dashboard packages โ†’
dashboard.yourbrand.com ยท KPI overview
MRR ยท this monthโ‚ฌ 12,450
Organic clicks ยท 30d8,420
Calls booked23
Conversion rate4.2%
Goal MRR โ‚ฌ15k83% reached

Stop paying 15-20% commission to Booking.
Take your direct bookings back.

30 minutes ยท free ยท no sales pitch. We look at your site, identify the top-3 OTA-bypass opportunities, and you get an honest estimate of direct-booking lift and investment โ€” even if we're not the right fit.

โ˜… The Growth System for travel brands ยท $2,197 setup + $1,097/mo ยท 21 days live or money back ยท max 4 new travel clients per quarter ยท Audit Plus ($747) as standalone entry
Message Kelly directly