Case Study – JW Lees & Co

Based in North Manchester, JW Lees & Co is a family run hospitality business founded in 1828. The company comprises of JW Lees Brewery, over 150 pubs, and 13 hotels and inns mainly in the North of England and North Wales.

Within JW Lees & Co, there was groupwide concern about reliance on OTA business. Faced with growing monthly commission payments and third parties dominating Google search returns, the group were looking for ways they could accelerate their direct distribution. It was important that any solution could be implemented easily, and ideally where the impact could be seen quickly.

'Setting up Guestline Google Connector was a no brainer for us. Swift, hassle free implementation, the costs of set up are offset each month with a just handful of direct bookings. Directly we anticipate savings of £20k over the year in reduced OTA commissions, but in addition, we get to build brand awareness, own the guest booking, and have the opportunity to build engagement and loyalty with our guests. We are delighted with how it's gone!'

• DBM Google Connector

With a link to the official JW Lees Website appearing when a guest searches for one of the group’s 13 properties through Google search or Google Maps, potential guests can quickly compare prices against the OTAs and then go straight to book direct. This enhanced visibility not only ‘steals’ bookings from the OTA’s but conversion is optimised as potential guests are not distracted by competing properties as seen on OTA’s.

Reduced reliance on OTA’s due to more direct bookings it is estimated will result in £20k savings in commission payments over a year.

With brand.com identified on search results as the ‘official website’, guests have more confidence knowing they are booking direct with the property.

By capturing bookings through their own website that would otherwise go through an OTA, JW Lees has the opportunity to own the relationship with the guest, building greater engagement and optimising the chances of repeat bookings.

The connection is not only reliable, but set up is quick, seamless and with Guestline doing all the work, JW Lees didn’t have to do anything to get this live!

JW Lees can easily monitor the effectiveness of Google Connector in driving traffic and bookings to their website through the Guestline Insights dashboard allowing JW Lees to manage their direct distribution strategy to optimise conversion.