Hotel Marketing Consultant for Independent Hotels, Serviced Apartments and Aparthotels. UK and Europe.
Grow direct bookings. Reduce OTA dependency. Stop competing on price.
I help independent hotels and serviced apartments cut OTA dependency, grow direct revenue and get found by the right guests without the red tape, the agency markup or the generic advice.
No long-term lock-in until you are ready. Just clear strategy, real commercial experience and actions that are built around your property.
Experience across boutique hotel and leading serviced apartment brands.
Hotel marketing strategy that connects the dots.
Independent hotels do not need more disconnected marketing activity. They need a clear, commercially aligned strategy that brings everything together, from search and paid media to website performance, content, local visibility and direct booking growth.
The Hotel Marketing Playbook was founded by Valerie Dhieux, a hotel marketing consultant with over 25 years of in-house hotel Sales, Marketing, Distribution and Digital experience across the UK, Europe, Middle East and Africa, giving you the structure, clarity and practical direction to grow your direct revenue, reduce commission cost and make every marketing action count. With a method: The DIRECT Playbook, not guesswork.
The DIRECT Playbook Method.
The direct booking framework built from 25 years inside hotels.
Six pillars. Built from years of running hotel sales and marketing inside the business, not from the outside. Each pillar is a deliberate part of working direct strategy and they only work in this order.
Diagnose
Where you actually are. Numbers, not assumptions.
D
Infrastructure
The foundation everything else stands on.
I
Reach
Be found. Be credible at the moment of decision.
R
Engage
Convert OTA guests into direct guests over time.
E
Convert
Turn interest into revenue.
C
Track
Know what working. Stop spending on what is not.
T
Three ways to work with me, an independent hotel marketing strategist.
All three engagement start with the DIRECT Playbook method. The difference is depth, duration and level of involvement.
01- Embedded Marketing Partner
Hands-on execution.
I work inside your business as your marketing function. Strategy, execution, monthly reporting and channel management. Best for hotels without a dedicated marketing team, or with a small team that needs senior direction and accountable delivery.
Fixed monthly retainer. Minimum 9 months.
02- Fractional Marketing Director
Strategic leadership.
I take the senior marketing seat at your table without the full-time overhead. Direction, prioritisation, team development and commercial alignment across marketing, revenue, distribution and sales. Best for small hotel chains and growing independent hotels ready to invest in marketing leadership.
Fixed monthly retainer. Minimum 6 months.
03- Visibility Audit
Clarity, fast.
A full review of your website, booking engine, OTA listings, Google presence, Social Media, Newsletter and paid media. You get a prioritised report on what to fix and in what order. Best for hotels that want clarity before committing to a longer engagement, or that have an internal team capable of implementing recommendations.
From £1500. One fixed fee. Delivered in 2 to 3 weeks.
Senior hotel marketing expertise, without the agency overhead.
Bonjour, I amValérie.
Founder of the Hotel Marketing Playbook.
I work with independent hotels, serviced apartments and aparthotels across the UK and Europe as a dedicated hotel marketing consultant. My focus is always the same: reduce OTA dependency, grow direct revenue and build the commercial foundations that make your marketing actually work.
Behind every engagement is over 25 years of in-house and head office hotel marketing across the UK, Europe, Middle East and Africa; including more than 20 hotel pre-openings and senior roles up to Director of Sales & Marketing, EMEA and Digital Marketing and Distribution Director, EMEA.
I take a maximum of three clients at any one time. This is not a marketing line, it is how I make sure every hotel I work with gets the quality of attention that produces results.
If you are a General Manager, Owner, Head of Commercial or Marketing Director and the gap between marketing activity and commercial performance is bothering you, we should talk.
Straight-talking Hotel Marketing Insights.
Every post is written for hotel owners, general managers and commercial teams who want practical answers, not theory. Published monthly.
Questions about hotel Marketing Consultancy
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A hotel marketing consultant helps independent hotels grow their revenue by improving how they are found online, converting more visitors into direct bookings and reducing their reliance on OTAs. Unlike a marketing agency, a great consultant has worked inside hotels and understands the commercial pressure, the team dynamics and the operational reality. I work across Digital Marketing, Search (SEO & AEO), Paid Media, Social, Google Business Profile, website strategy, Distribution, Brand positioning and Revenue alignment. Everything is tailored to your specific property, your market and your goals.
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It depends on the type of engagement . A one-time Hotel Visibility Audit starts from £1500 or €1800 and gives you a complete action plan you can implement yourself or with support. For ongoing embedded support or fractional marketing director, pricing is based on hours agreed and scope of work, and is quoted after an initial discovery call. All ongoing engagements are a minimum of 6 to 9 months, because that is the timeframe in which you start seeing meaningful and compounding results.
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A hotel marketing consultant works directly with your property, bringing senior-level strategic thinking and accountability for results. There is no account manager layer , no team switching between clients and no conflict of interest from managing competitor accounts. Ana agency typically operates at scale, with juniors executing on strategy set by someone more senior who is not heavily involved in your day to day. I have worked with agencies. The difference in output, speed and commercial alignment is significant. For independent hotels, a specialist consultant with genuine hotel experience will almost always outperform a generalist agency at the same budget.
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Yes. Many independent Hotels, Serviced apartments and aparthotels I support do not have a full time marketing function. My Hotel Consultancy adapts to your capacity.
I can provide strategic marketing direction, hands on implementation or a hybrid approach depending on your internal structure.
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Absolutely. I frequently work alongside in-house teams to introduce structure, commercial alignment and accountability. The goal is to strengthen performance, not replace capability.
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No. Paid media can accelerate performance, but it is not a requirement.
Search visibility, website conversion, google business profile optimisation and clear positioning often unlocks meaningful gains before activating paid. Paid campaigns are introduced only when they support clear commercial objectives.
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Yes. When required, I can take ownership of defined areas such as SEO, digital performance direction and visibility performance. Alternatively, I can guide and advise your existing team to ensure activity remains aligned with the revenue goal.
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The honest answer is that it takes time and a clear plan, but it is absolutely achievable to a degree. The starting point is always the same: fix the foundations. That means identifying your ideal guest, making sure your website converts direct traffic, optimising your Google and LLMs presence so guests find you without going through an OTA and building a direct booking incentive that makes it genuinely worth booking with you rather than a third party site. I have helped hotels, apartment hotels and serviced apartments shift meaningful percentage points of their OTA volume to direct in 6 to 12 months. It is one of the most rewarding results to deliver because the impact on margins is immediate.
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The Hotel Visibility Audit is a structured review of everything that affects how easily your hotel or serviced apartment gets found online and how effectively it converts visitors into bookings. That includes your website, your OTA profiles, your Google Business Profile, your SEO and AEO fundamentals, your paid media setup and how you compare to your closest competitors. At the end you receive a clear, prioritised action report telling you exactly what to fix and in what order. My Hotel Visibility Audit starts from £1,500 and most hotels find that fixing just one or two of the issues identified more than covers the cost within the first month.
Ready to find out what is holding your hotel back?
Let’s start with an honest conversation. Tell me about your hotel or serviced apartment, what is not working and what you want to change. If I can help, I will tell you exactly how. If I am not the right person, I will tell you that too.
No hard sell. Just two people who love hotels talking about how to make your perform better.