HMRA

Results

What good looks like

The examples below are illustrative scenarios created to show how we work and the outcomes we aim for. They are not verified client claims, and past performance never guarantees future results.

Independent Gastropub, Surrey

+42% online bookings

in 3 months

Illustrative example

The challenge

Strong weekends, empty Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Bookings arrived by phone and were lost when the bar got busy.

What we did

  • New booking-first website with a midweek set-menu landing page
  • Geo-targeted Google Search and Meta campaigns inside a 6-mile radius
  • Deposit-backed online reservations to cut no-shows

The outcome

Midweek trade stopped depending on whoever happened to answer the phone. Online reservations took over as the primary booking route, the set-menu page gave paid campaigns a specific offer to sell rather than a generic homepage, and deposits removed most of the no-show cost that had made midweek promotions feel not worth running.

What it teaches. Most quiet-midweek problems are not awareness problems. They are offer and booking-friction problems, and fixing those two usually costs less than buying more reach.

Boutique Hotel, Cotswolds

+28% direct room nights

in one season

Illustrative example

The challenge

Almost all demand came through OTAs, with commission quietly eating the margin on every stay.

What we did

  • Rate and demand-calendar rebuild with weekend minimum stays
  • Direct-booking incentives and a rebuilt Google Business Profile
  • Brand-search campaigns to intercept OTA bidding

The outcome

Occupancy held while channel mix shifted, which is the part that changes the P&L: the same room nights delivered materially more contribution once a larger share arrived direct. Brand-search coverage stopped OTAs intercepting guests who were already searching the property by name, and the rate calendar protected peak weekends instead of selling them early and cheap.

What it teaches. For rooms, the win is rarely more demand. It is the same demand arriving through a channel that does not charge fifteen to twenty per cent for the privilege.

High Street Bistro, Manchester

2.1x midweek covers

in 5 months

Illustrative example

The challenge

Great reviews but almost no local visibility — the venue didn't appear in map results for its own street.

What we did

  • Local SEO and map-pack optimisation for 'near me' searches
  • Monthly on-site content shoots and social calendar
  • Review generation flow built into the after-visit email

The outcome

The venue moved into the local map pack for the searches its own customers were using, so walk-past trade was replaced by people arriving with intent. A steady review flow compounded that visibility month over month, and consistent on-site photography meant the listing and social feed finally matched the quality of the room.

What it teaches. Great reviews are worthless if the profile they sit on is incomplete. Local visibility is an operational habit — hours, photos, replies, categories — more than a one-off optimisation.

How we measure

How we decide whether the work is working

Hospitality marketing is easy to report flatteringly and hard to report honestly. This is the measurement discipline we hold ourselves to on every retainer.

Bookings, not impressions

Every engagement is reported against covers, room nights, direct bookings and enquiries. Reach and impressions appear in reporting only as context for why those numbers moved.

Cost per booking, tracked monthly

We track what a booking costs across each channel so budget can be moved toward the ones that pay. If a channel cannot be made to work for your venue, we say so and stop spending on it.

Channel mix and commission

For hotels, B&Bs and any venue using reservation platforms, we track the split between direct and third-party bookings. Shifting that split is often worth more than growing total volume.

Baseline before, comparison after

We record where you start — traffic, bookings, channel mix, review volume, average spend — before changing anything, so improvements can be attributed honestly rather than claimed.

Seasonality respected

Hospitality numbers are seasonal, so we compare like with like: this August against last August, not against a strong June. Anyone quoting month-on-month growth in a rising season is flattering themselves.

Attribution stated plainly

Marketing rarely acts alone. Where a result was helped by a menu change, refurbishment, new opening or a competitor closing, we note it instead of taking sole credit.

Full disclosure

What these numbers are and are not

  • The examples on this page are illustrative scenarios written to show how we work and what we aim for. They are composites, not verified case studies from named clients.
  • We do not publish client names or numbers without written permission, and we would rather show honest illustrative examples than borrowed or inflated ones.
  • Results vary substantially by venue, location, catchment, price point, budget and how much of the plan actually gets implemented. Past performance never guarantees future results.
  • If you want references, ask during the audit conversation and we will arrange them directly rather than posting them here.

In their words

The conversations behind these results

The quotes below are illustrative composites written to show the kind of problems operators bring us and how they describe the change afterwards. They are not reviews from named clients and they carry no star ratings.

Written by HMRA — not a sourced review
We had accepted quiet Tuesdays as just how the pub worked. It turned out to be an offer problem — once there was a reason to come midweek and a way to book it in ten seconds, the covers appeared.
Owner (illustrative role)Independent gastropub, Surrey (region only)
Written by HMRA — not a sourced review
A fifth of every peak-season booking was going to the OTAs. We didn't need to leave them, we needed a direct route that was genuinely better — and to stop sending our own guests through a portal.
General manager (illustrative role)Boutique hotel, Cotswolds (region only)
Written by HMRA — not a sourced review
Wedding and function enquiries were being answered whenever somebody had a spare ten minutes. Answering in minutes with a proper pack changed how many we won, before we spent anything on advertising.
Events manager (illustrative role)Country house venue, Yorkshire (region only)
Written by HMRA — not a sourced review
The reporting was the part we didn't expect to value. Knowing which nights, which offers and which channels actually paid meant we stopped funding the ones that never did.
Operations director (illustrative role)Three-site bistro group, Manchester (region only)

About these quotes

No. They are illustrative composites written by HMRA from the recurring themes we hear in client conversations. No quote is a verbatim transcription of one person's words, and no name or specific business is attached. We use them to show the kind of problems operators bring us and how they describe the change afterwards.

How these quotes were written

Synthesised, not transcribed

Each quote is written by HMRA from recurring themes in real client conversations. No quote is a verbatim copy of a single person's words, and no reviewer name is attached.

Venues are regional, not real

Venue descriptions (e.g. 'Independent gastropub, Surrey') give context only. They refer to venue types and regions we work in, not to a specific named business.

No ratings, no schema

We deliberately publish no star ratings and no Review or AggregateRating structured data against these quotes. Google requires rating markup to reflect genuine, verifiable customer reviews.

Replaced when permitted

When a client gives written permission to publish their name, venue and words, we swap the matching composite for the real review — including the rating and schema markup.

In plain terms: these are imagined-but-realistic operator voices we wrote ourselves to illustrate the work. They are not Google reviews, not attributed to a named person or business, and not rated. If we ever publish a real client quote with a name and stars, it will be clearly labelled as a verified client review and carry the matching review schema.

Multi-location case studies

What changes when you run more than one site

Groups and collections don't fail at marketing because they lack effort — they fail because four sites run four separate strategies and compete for the same searcher. These are the patterns we use when venues share a brand but not a trading pattern.

Four-site gastropub group

4 venues · UK

SurreyHampshireBerkshireWest London

The problem

One brand, four trading patterns. Every site ran its own ads and its own social, so budget went to the busiest venue and the two quiet midweek sites never recovered.

What we did

  • Rebuilt one Google Business Profile per site with distinct service areas, menus and photography so the venues stopped cannibalising each other in local search.
  • Moved paid search into a shared account with per-venue budgets capped by covers capacity, not by spend equality.
  • Created a single booking flow with venue selection, so a full Saturday at one site was upsold into a Thursday at another.

Illustrative outcomes

+38%
midweek covers across the group
-24%
cost per booked cover
3
sites ranking top-3 locally

Boutique hotel collection

3 properties · UK & Ireland

CotswoldsEdinburghWest Cork

The problem

Roughly 70% of room nights arrived through OTAs at 15–18% commission, and the collection had no shared guest database to rebook from.

What we did

  • Property-level direct booking campaigns with rate-parity-safe offers and a best-rate guarantee on every page.
  • One CRM across all three properties, so a guest who stayed in Edinburgh gets an off-season Cork offer.
  • Revenue calendar per property with minimum-stay and shoulder-season pricing rules set by demand, not habit.

Illustrative outcomes

+31%
direct room nights
-9pts
OTA share of bookings
22%
of bookings from repeat guests

North American restaurant brand

6 locations · US & Canada

TorontoChicagoAustinDenverVancouverMontréal

The problem

US and Canadian sites shared one website with one phone number, one currency and one set of hours — so local searchers in Vancouver saw Chicago information and bounced.

What we did

  • A dedicated location page per city with local hours, local phone number, local currency and LocalBusiness schema.
  • Reservation platform tracking unified so covers, no-shows and cost per cover were comparable city by city.
  • Bilingual (EN/FR) copy and creative for the Montréal site, run as its own audience rather than a translation.

Illustrative outcomes

2.4x
organic local sessions
+27%
reservations from search
6/6
locations with clean local listings

Figures shown are illustrative examples for demonstration, not verified client results.

Discuss your group

Global footprint

Serving hospitality operators across the UK, US, Canada, Australia & New Zealand

Same discipline, localised delivery: local platforms, local currency, local search language and calls scheduled in your timezone rather than ours.

United KingdomHead office · London
United StatesEastern to Pacific cover
CanadaBilingual where needed
AustraliaAEST/AWST cover
New ZealandNZST cover
IrelandEuro pricing
The weeknight problem we had lived with for three years turned out to be an offer problem, not an awareness problem. Covers moved in the first month.
Owner, neighbourhood restaurantBrooklyn, New York
We were paying a fifth of every peak-season booking to the OTAs. Shifting even a quarter of that to direct changed what the season was worth to us.
General manager, mountain lodgeBanff, Alberta
Functions were being answered whenever someone had a spare ten minutes. Now they're answered in minutes, with a pack, and we win far more of them.
Venue manager, inner-west pubSydney, New South Wales

Quotes and locations are illustrative composites written to show the kind of problems we solve, not verified testimonials from named clients. We publish client names and numbers only with written permission.

Where to go next

Where these results come from

Every number on this page was produced by one of the programmes below. Pick the one that matches the venue you run.

Next step

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