Booking buys your name
Booking and Expedia buy your hotel’s name on Google: when a guest searches for it, the first link they see is theirs, not yours. You pay commission on a guest who already wanted to book with you.
For independent hotels
Booking buys your hotel’s name.
Even from guests who were already searching for you.
We win them back in 7 days with the same tools the big chains use: an optimized website, defensive Google campaigns, a public rate comparison widget, rate-parity alerts. €799/month.
- €799/month
- 7 days to launch
- Chain-level tools
- No lock-in
✓ 90-day guarantee · money back if not satisfied
hotelbellavista.it
Hotel Bellavista
CamereServiziPosizione
Prenota
3★ — Bologna centro
Il tuo hotel a due passi
da Piazza Maggiore.
Da 89 €/notteColazione inclusaCancellazione gratis
Check-in
15 mag
Check-out
17 mag
Ospiti
2 adulti
Verifica disponibilità
Standard
89 €/notte
Superior
124 €/notte
Suite
189 €/notte
Template preview · personalized for each hotel
The structural problem
The commission you pay Booking isn’t a cost. It’s margin you give away.
Real example, a typical independent 3★ hotel
€91,800 a year
€850,000 in revenue · 60% via OTAs · 18% blended commission (Booking standard 15% + Genius/Preferred/Expedia). Calculated on gross bookings; on net revenue the figure is ~10% lower. That’s the equivalent of over 9 years of Indipendo, handed every single year to a channel you don’t control. Your exact number is below, on your real revenue ↓
The 15–22% you pay Booking, Expedia and the rest on every booking isn’t a variable marketing expense: it’s a fixed slice of profit you leave on the table for every guest who arrives through a platform. The more you fill through them, the bigger the number gets in absolute terms. Filling rooms well doesn’t solve the problem — it amplifies it.
The cause is almost always the same, and almost always avoidable: the hotel’s current website is old, slow, poorly written, optimized neither for Google searches nor for mobile conversion — so guests who were already searching for you by name find Booking as the first option, click it, book there. Meanwhile, Google campaigns are non-existent or set up amateurishly: no name-defense protocols, no weekly keyword reviews, no real conversion tracking. Booking becomes the only visible channel for your own name — not because Booking is good, but because you’re not defending your most important asset.
You give away more margin every year
15–22% average commission on gross. If Booking is 50–60% of your revenue, that’s tens of thousands of euros leaving every year — money that could be profit, if just a share of those guests booked directly on your website.
Your property is worth less than it should be
A property that depends on third parties for 60–90% of its bookings isn’t an investment, it’s a subcontract. Without a website that converts and a structured direct channel, your hotel is worth less than its real potential.
The risk is all yours
You pay for the walls, the staff, the utilities, the maintenance. If Booking decides to change the rules or favor a competitor, your revenue drops overnight and you’re left holding the fixed costs.
The big chains solved this problem twenty years ago: in-house revenue management, a price comparison on the official website, automatic rate-parity monitoring, cross-channel dashboards. The independent hotel didn’t — until now. The difference isn’t product quality: a 4★ room in the center of Bologna is worth as much as a Marriott room. The difference is the commercial tools available. Indipendo brings those tools into one affordable managed service.
Calculator
How much are you paying Booking this year?
You see the commissions on your statement every month. But what’s the annual total? And how much would you recover by shifting 30% of your OTA bookings to the direct channel within 12 months (a conservative target, in line with our benchmarks)? Enter two numbers and we’ll tell you right away.
€850,000
€200,000€3,000,000
60 %
20%90%
OTA commissions you pay today (over one year):
€91,800
a year, on your Booking statement
What you recover by shifting 30% of OTA bookings to direct:
+€27,540
that’s 30% of your OTA bookings recovered on direct in 12 months
Indipendo cost over one year (12 × €799):
−€9,588
Net margin, first year:
+€17,952
Cumulative over 3 years:
+€53,856
Once up and running, Indipendo pays for itself within a few months: everything beyond that is pure margin flowing back into your books, year after year.
Estimate based on an average 18% commission and a 30% shift of OTA bookings to the direct channel over 12 months — consistent with industry benchmarks and with the results Alessandro and Salvatore have achieved on comparable properties. Indipendo cost calculated at €799/month. We’ll redo the math together on your real revenue during the call.
The approach
The same work an agency does. A fraction of the cost.
What a traditional agency builds from scratch every single time, we built once — a hotel website template optimized through dozens of field tests — and we personalize it for each client with your content, photos and prices. The Google campaigns follow repeatable protocols matured across dozens of independent hotels: no improvisation, the same checks every week.
Traditional agencies do everything manually for every client: a project manager, a copywriter, a designer on each job. To stay afloat they have to charge €2,500–€5,000 a month and lock you in for 12 months. Indipendo is built differently: we run the repetitive parts on a proven template with standardized processes, and we focus on strategy and on the details specific to your hotel. Same result, much lower cost. That’s why it’s €799/month — no lock-in, no setup fee.
01
A ready-made hotel website template
We don’t build bespoke sites: we built an optimized hotel template once, after dozens of tests, and we personalize it for each client with your content — rooms, photos, prices, descriptions. It outperforms 90% of independent hotel websites because it was designed to bring in bookings: information hierarchy, “Book” button placement, reviews front and center, photos that convert. Fast to load, perfect on a phone, ready in Italian, English, German and French. Live in 7 days.
02
Google Ads managed by professionals
The Google campaigns we run for you follow professional protocols built over years of managing hotel ad campaigns. Ads written and tested, precise tracking of the bookings the ads bring in, keyword filters updated every week, continuous testing to improve results. Professional defense of your hotel’s name on Google — not a basic setup.
03
Your hotel on Google Hotel Search
Your hotel appears on Google Hotel Search, connected to your channel manager or booking engine. The same traffic that sends guests to Booking, but on a CPC (cost-per-click) model or commission-per-stay typically 10–15% of booked revenue — a fraction of the effective 18–22% paid to the OTAs including Genius and Preferred. You know exactly where your bookings come from, from day one. Professional standard setup — no stripped-down version of the service.
How it works
Seven days to launch. No endless meetings.
01Day 0
Discovery call
A 15-minute conversation to check whether Indipendo is the right choice for your hotel. No quote to prepare: the price is public. We find out which booking systems you use, what your current website looks like, what your Booking/direct mix is, and whether the no-lock-in monthly model works for you. If yes, we send you the contract.
02Day 1–2
Project kickoff
We send you one form to fill in, once: current photos of the property, descriptions of rooms and amenities, your booking system details, Google access. From there, we do the work: we write the website copy, you review it before anything goes live.
03Day 7
Site live, campaigns running
The website is published on your domain. The Google campaigns are live. From that day, the numbers start flowing into your dashboard — and over the following weeks we keep optimizing.
Questions
What we get asked most often.
Do I have to leave Booking to work with you?
No. Indipendo doesn’t ask you to close your Booking channel — that would actually work against you. Booking is useful for reaching new guests who don’t know you yet. The goal is to lower Booking’s share of your total, not to zero it out: going from 60-70% Booking to 40-50% in twelve months is already a huge result for your bottom line. Booking and direct bookings coexist — it’s the ratio that changes.
My property is small — 20-30 rooms — does it still work?
Yes — it’s actually the ideal size. Indipendo is built for independent 3-4★ boutique hotels, typically 25-80 rooms. Below 20 rooms, search volume on your hotel’s name gets too low for the ad campaigns to be efficient — and if that’s your case, we tell you straight away on the call instead of having you sign. Honesty first.
Is Indipendo really just €799 a month? Where’s the catch?
There isn’t one. The flat fee is the price of the service. The Google ad budget — the money that turns into guest clicks — is on the hotel and you pay it directly to Google: it never passes through us. The architecture is deliberately transparent: our revenue is the flat fee only, never a cut of what you spend on ads. Which also means we have no incentive to make you spend more than necessary.
I redid my website two years ago — do I have to throw it away?
We completely understand the hesitation — it’s the question we get most often. The website you have today is probably a good business card: it presents the hotel, shows the rooms, makes a good impression. Indipendo does something different: it’s a tool optimized for conversion and for defending your hotel’s name on Google — two jobs most hotel websites don’t do. On the average boutique hotel, the Indipendo investment pays for itself in 4-6 months from the Booking → direct shift alone. Your old website stays yours — keep it as an archive or switch it off: the domain isn’t touched.
What if it doesn’t work?
Cancel with 30 days’ notice and pay only the current month. You export all your data: photos, copy, contacts, content. No penalties, and no arguing over "what counts as working".
Where do you work?
We work with independent hotels everywhere — city hotels, beach destinations, mountain resorts, historic towns. Everything is managed remotely, and we work with hoteliers in English and Italian.
The price
€799 a month. Everything included.
One plan, everything included
Indipendo
€799/month
✦ Month-to-month. Cancel anytime with 30 days’ notice.
90-day guarantee
Money back if not satisfied.
If within 90 days of your website going live your hotel’s direct booking share hasn’t grown by at least 5 percentage points versus the same period last year (measured in your PMS, latest available data), we refund every month you’ve paid. The definition of "growth" and the comparison window are written into the contract: no grey areas.
- Multilingual hotel website (IT/EN/DE/FR)
- Hosting and domain managed for you
- Defense of your hotel’s name on Google
- Your hotel on Google Hotel Search
- Dashboard with your booking data
- Plugs into your current systems: your PMS, channel manager and booking engine stay yours
- Support on request
The Google ad budget — the money you pay Google for clicks — is on the hotel. You have full access to the account: we don’t manage the money and we take no margin on your bookings. The architecture is deliberately transparent: we have no incentive to make you spend more than necessary.
Start the free audit →Prefer to talk first? Book a call
Live in 7 days · Monthly billing · No setup fee
SEPA transfer or card via Stripe · Monthly billing · Cancel anytime
Indipendo is in the process of incorporating — until the paperwork is complete, invoicing runs through an accredited Italian partner. Updates at /en/privacy.
Built by hotel specialists
Alessandro Fidanzia
Co-founder · Strategy & Web
Digital marketing specialist with over ten years of experience. Has worked with international hotel groups such as Four Seasons and St. Regis. At Indipendo he leads product: the website template, content, positioning strategy.
Salvatore Pio Colecchi
Co-founder · Google campaigns
Online advertising specialist. Years of managing Google campaigns for some of the most prominent independent hotels. At Indipendo he leads advertising: defense of your hotel’s name on Google, presence on Google Hotel Search, continuous optimization of results.
Ready to win back your guests?
A call with Alessandro or Salvatore — the price is public, no quote needed.
90-day guarantee · Monthly billing · Live in 7 days