Luxury hotel marketing fails because visibility is mistaken for ownership. Most luxury resorts invest heavily in brand campaigns, paid media, social content, CRM email, and website optimization. These efforts generate awareness.
NB: This is an article from Americas Great Resorts
Subscribe to our weekly newsletter and stay up to date
But awareness is not owned demand.
Here is the structural problem:
Luxury marketing primarily creates external demand – demand that forms on platforms the hotel does not control, such as search engines, OTAs, review sites, and social feeds.
When a traveler becomes interested, they do not enter the hotel’s system. They enter someone else’s.
That means:
- The hotel does not own the audience
- The hotel does not control the journey
- The hotel does not manage the closing experience
So even when marketing looks active, growth feels stuck. Because the hotel is participating in demand – not capturing it.
Marketing fails when it operates downstream of demand formation.
Why do OTAs dominate closing?
OTAs dominate closing because they sit at the decision moment.
- They don’t create most of the desire.
- They don’t fund most of the brand equity.
- They simply control the final step.
This works because OTAs:
- Aggregate inventory
- Normalize pricing
- Remove friction
- Centralize comparison
- Train travelers to complete bookings inside their ecosystem
By the time a traveler is ready to book, OTAs already have:
- The user account
- The saved payment method
- The habit loop
- The UX advantage
So even when a guest started with your brand story, they often finish on an OTA.
This is not a marketing failure.
It is an infrastructure failure.
OTAs win because they built demand-capture systems while hotels focused on promotion.
Why does email convert demand – but not create it?
Email is a conversion engine.
It is not an acquisition engine.
Email only works after a relationship exists. It requires:
- An address
- Permission
- Prior engagement
Which means email operates downstream of demand creation.
Hotels are often told to “use email to drive new bookings.” But email cannot acquire guests who never entered the system. It can only:
- Nurture known audiences
- Convert existing interest
- Reactivate prior guests
- Increase lifetime value
When hotels ask email to solve acquisition, they are forcing a retention tool to perform an acquisition role. That category confusion creates disappointment.
Email performs exceptionally once demand is owned. It cannot manufacture demand where no audience exists.
Email converts demand; it does not create demand.
