Hotel Teardown Scan a hotel Direct Booking Teardown · alderandrye.com · Oct 24, 2026
Lagging. Guests can book direct, but the route is long and leaky.
Where the 61 comes from
Weighted to how much each one moves direct bookings.
The booking flow
Captured on a 390 × 844 phone and a 1440 desktop. Numbers match the findings below.
01 · Booking flow
Where the booking happens and how many clicks it takes to see a price.
01
Tapping Book opens book.engine-host.example in a new tab. Guests lose your header, your tracking and your rate promise.
Fix: Keep the booking panel on your own domain, or pass the GA4 linker on the hand-off.
02
Home, Rooms, Room detail, Dates, then rates. The cohort median is three clicks.
Fix: Put a date picker on the homepage that opens straight to rates.
02 · OTA leaks
Outbound links to travel sites along the booking path.
03
Footer badges and a “Compare prices” link send guests to travel sites before they have seen your direct rate.
Fix: Remove outbound badges from the booking path and move review links below the fold.
03 · Direct-booking levers
What a guest sees that makes the direct rate the better one.
04
No price promise, perk or member rate appears next to the rates.
Fix: Add one line: best rate, free breakfast or late checkout for direct guests.
05
Past guests see the same rates as a first visit, and there is no sign-in path.
Fix: Offer a simple member rate and say so on the rates page.
04 · Retention
How you stay in touch with people who visit and do not book.
06
No saved quote, exit capture or email sign-up appears before the booking engine.
Fix: Offer a saved quote by email on the rates page.
05 · Technical
Speed, accessibility and search basics on the pages guests use.
07
Largest paint lands at 4.1 seconds on a throttled 4G connection.
Fix: Compress hero photography and defer the chat widget.
08
The room gallery and two promotions have no text description for screen readers.
Fix: Add short descriptions to every image on the booking path.
06 · AI-agent readiness
Whether AI agents can find your rooms, rates and policies.
09
Rates and availability sit behind a script-only widget, so assistants cannot quote them.
Fix: Publish rates and room details as structured data on the page.
10
Address and amenities are marked up, but check-in times and policies are not.
Fix: Add check-in, check-out and cancellation policy to your structured data.
07 · Benchmark
Independent hotels of 30–100 keys. The shaded band is the middle half of the cohort.
Methodology
Seven weighted categories add up to 100 points. Every point lost links to a plate and a fix.
We open your homepage on a 390 × 844 phone profile, follow the first Book control to a rate, and record every click and domain change. We then run speed, accessibility, search and structured-data checks on the pages along that path. We never enter a guest form or reach payment.
Weights: direct booking experience 25, booking engine and tracking 10, retention and leakage 15, direct-booking levers 20, technical performance 10, AI-agent readiness 12, SEO and AEO 8.
Next step
A Shrimpton strategist walks through this report with you and prices the fixes. For independent hotels and small groups.
