Case study · Tourism and destinations
Tourism SEO case study: direct bookings over booking sites
What we did for a guided tour operator (Sedona, AZ), and what changed.
The outcome
Bookings shifted from booking sites to the operator's own website
Before
The situation
A guided tour operator in Sedona came to us because it depended on booking sites that take a commission on every booking.
Booking sites have a real role in tourism. They reach travelers who have never heard of a local operator, and many visitors start there. But every booking that comes through one costs the operator a share of the price, and the operator competes on the same screen with every other tour in town.
Before
The problem
An operator that relies on commission-taking booking sites gives up part of every sale. It also gives up the relationship with the traveler: the booking site owns the listing, the reviews and often the customer's contact details. The more bookings that come that way, the less control the operator has over its own business.
Travelers do search beyond the booking sites. They search for tours, for things to do and for advice on how to plan their days. An operator whose own website answers those searches can be found directly, and a booking made on its own site keeps the full price. The work is in giving those travelers a reason to stay on the operator's site long enough to book.
Trip planning is also moving to AI tools. Many travelers now ask ChatGPT to help plan a visit, with questions like the best things to do in Sedona in two days. Those tools draw on content that answers such questions directly and usefully.
The work
What we did
Step 01
Built tour pages.
Each tour got its own page on the operator's site. That gives Google a page to rank for searches about that kind of tour and gives a traveler everything they need to book directly, without going through a booking site.
Step 02
Wrote itinerary guides.
Itinerary guides help travelers plan their time in Sedona. They reach people early in their planning, before they have chosen a tour, and they naturally point to the tours that fit each plan. A traveler who finds a useful plan on an operator's own site has a good reason to book there rather than go back to a booking site to compare.
Step 03
Wrote seasonal content.
What travelers want to do changes through the year, and so do the questions they ask. Seasonal content meets those searches as they come around and keeps the site current and relevant. A page written for a season can also be refreshed each year, so it keeps its standing in search instead of starting over.
Step 04
Wrote the itineraries to answer travelers' questions directly.
The itinerary content was written around the questions people ask when planning, such as the best things to do in Sedona in two days. Answering the question plainly helps the traveler and gives AI tools a clear answer to draw on.
After
The results
The tour pages, itinerary guides and seasonal content shifted bookings to the operator's own site. More travelers now book directly instead of through commission-taking booking sites, so the operator keeps more of each sale and a direct relationship with its customers.
The itinerary content also reached AI search. It gets the operator recommended in ChatGPT trip-planning answers to questions like the best things to do in Sedona in two days, which reaches travelers while they are still deciding how to spend their visit. Out of respect for the operator's privacy, we do not publish its name or anything that would identify it.
The outcome
Bookings shifted from booking sites to the operator's own website
Next step
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