Atlas / Food & Hospitality
Industry profile
Hotels & Resorts marketing benchmarks
Strongest on Brand & Positioning, weakest on Data & Tracking. Hotels & Resorts sits above the national average, and that tension shapes how the whole industry markets.
Score signature
Bars are this industry. Ticks are the national average.
Biggest strength
Brand & Positioning
69 out of 100. The engine carrying the whole score.
Biggest gap
Data & Tracking
60 out of 100. The dimension dragging the industry down.
Where to start
Retention & Loyalty
The most upside per point of effort: 25% of the score and 0 points below the field.
The map
Where this industry sits
Every dot is an industry we measure. Choose any two dimensions for the axes. Hotels & Resorts is the red mark.
Acquisition Performance →
Hotels & Resorts sits below average on Retention & Loyalty and above average on Acquisition Performance. That tension defines the industry.
The spread inside the industry
Every number is a Marketing Score out of 100. It rolls six dimensions into one figure, so 53 is a business doing the basics and 79 is one that markets like a business twice its size.
The distance between the strongest and weakest performer here is wide. A small cluster is genuinely good. A long tail sits well behind. The bar to lead this industry is lower than the reputation suggests. So where would you land?
The breakdown
How far above or below the field
Each row plots this industry against the whole field. The dot is where Hotels & Resorts sits, the line is the national average and the faint marks are every other industry. Tap a row for what the dimension means.
How modern and capable is the digital setup?
How well does the industry win new demand?
How well does it turn interest into customers?
How well does it keep and grow customers?
How clear and distinct is the brand?
Can any of this actually be measured?
The read
What the numbers say about Hotels & Resorts
On the whole, Hotels & Resorts is a middle-of-the-pack industry. It leads on brand & positioning and trails on data & tracking, and the fastest gains sit in retention & loyalty.
Brand & Positioning
Sits in the upper half of every industry we measure. This is the engine carrying the score.
Data & Tracking
Sits in the upper half. The soft spot that drags the whole number down.
Retention & Loyalty
Carries the most weight in the score and sits below the field. Move this and the whole number moves with it.
A brand & positioning-led industry with a data & tracking problem. The reputation says one thing. The pipeline says another.
Go deeper
The OTA squeeze and the fight for direct bookings+
The central tension of Australian hotel marketing is the relationship with online travel agencies. Booking.com and Expedia deliver guests, but at commission rates of 15-25% that erode margin. The composite reflects a sector that is competent at marketing but financially pressured by distribution costs.
Brand and positioning is the strongest dimension. Hotels are inherently brand businesses. The property, the location, the experience, the visual identity: these are the marketing. The hotels with strong brand scores have invested in professional photography, curated social content and a website experience that matches the on-property experience.
The OTA dependency shows up in the acquisition score of 64.2. Hotels that rely primarily on OTAs for bookings have outsourced their acquisition to platforms that prioritise their own revenue over the hotel's margin. The properties winning on acquisition have invested in direct booking strategies: best-rate guarantees on their own website, email marketing to past guests, Google Hotel Ads and metasearch.
Retention with 25% weight separates the best from the rest. Loyalty programs (Accor ALL, Marriott Bonvoy, IHG Rewards) drive repeat bookings for chain hotels. Independent properties that build guest databases, send personalised offers and remember guest preferences achieve similar retention without the brand investment.
Digital maturity is driven by operational tech: property management systems, channel managers, revenue management and booking engines. This operational technology also feeds marketing capability. The hotels connecting their PMS data to their marketing platforms can send the right offer to the right guest at the right time.
Acquisition and retention share the stage+
Acquisition and retention each carry 25%. Hotels need a constant pipeline of new guests (acquisition) while building loyalty among repeat visitors and corporate clients (retention). The balance reflects a category where both matter equally.
Digital maturity at 20% and 68.0 is high, driven by the central role of booking platforms, channel managers and revenue management systems in modern hotel operations.
Brand at just 7% seems low for a category where brand is the product. The weighting captures positioning clarity specifically. Brand impact is expressed through acquisition (branded hotels attract more bookings) and conversion (trusted brands convert at higher rates).
Where hotels should invest marketing effort+
Retention with 25% weight is the biggest opportunity. Corporate accounts, loyalty programs and personalised guest communication drive repeat bookings. The properties with active loyalty programs see 30-40% of revenue from returning guests.
Direct booking conversion is the specific lever within the 65.0 conversion score. Every booking that goes through an OTA (Booking.com, Expedia) costs 15-25% commission. Hotels that increase direct booking share by even 5 percentage points save significant revenue.
Data with 3% weight can improve through CRM investment. Guest history, preferences and booking patterns enable personalised marketing that drives both retention and direct booking rates.
Highlighted terms link through to the marketing dictionary.
Frequently asked
Common questions about Hotels & Resorts
How do Australian hotels compare on marketing?+
How can hotels reduce OTA commission costs?+
What marketing channels work best for hotels?+
How important is a loyalty program for hotels?+
Keep exploring
Where to go from here
Pull any thread.
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