Direct Booking Mastery Certification
Become a certified expert in driving direct bookings and turn strategy into revenue while positioning yourself as a leader.
What is the Direct Booking Mastery certification?
A six-part educational program that enables hoteliers like you to drive direct revenue.
Learn how to implement the six strategies through practical guides, insightful conversations, and real-life examples of successes that hoteliers across the world are already seeing.
How it works
The 6 strategies
Cart abandonment recovery
Turn lost bookings to recovered revenue — Every lost booking is a missed opportunity, but this course teaches you how to bring guests back with perfectly timed, multi-channel campaigns. Learn how to recover revenue — without reinventing your tech stack.
- How to Guide → Hotel cart abandonment recovery: The multi-channel playbook
- Customer stories → Discover how hoteliers deployed effective strategies to see results
- Article → OTAs aren’t stealing your guests. You’re giving them away.
- Article → Do’s and Don’ts of converting travel browsers into bookers
- Interview → Emailing at the Right Tempo for Fewer Cart Abandonments and More Winbacks
Loyalty program optimization
Build the loyalty that drives direct bookings — Loyal guests are your most profitable guests, and this course teaches you exactly how to build loyalty programs that go beyond points. Discover how to create lasting guest relationships that lead to repeat direct bookings.
- How to Guide → Beyond points: Building a customer loyalty strategy that drives direct revenue
- Article → Why winning guest loyalty is top priority
- Customer stories → Loyalty in action: How these hotels optimized their programs to drive direct bookings
- Article → Loyalty for the blended traveler: 10 practical moves for hotels in 2025
- Interview → Up in the air, loyalty on the ground: A conversation with Ellis Connolly
Guest segmentation strategies
Market smarter with precise targeting — One-size-fits-all marketing doesn’t work in modern hospitality, so this course guides you on how to properly segment your guest database and personalize your communications to existing and potential guests for higher conversions.
- How to Guide → Microsegmentation for hotels: Driving revenue through direct bookings
- Article → The competitive edge of integrated data versus siloed approaches
- Customer stories → Hotel market segments: How top hotels turn data into bookings
- Article → Guest segmentation in 2025: Moving beyond broad-brush marketing with AI
- Article→ Why fewer options means more bookings
Upsell & cross-sell optimization
Unlock hidden revenue in every stay — Revenue goes beyond the room booking, and this course teaches you how to unlock additional revenue throughout the guest journey. Learn how to personalize your upsell offers so that they feel helpful and enticing, not pushy.
- How to Guide → Total revenue management: Hotel upselling across guest touchpoints
- Customer stories → Upselling hotel examples: How top properties boost revenue with upsells
- Article → The AI-powered hotel upsell: Turning every channel into a revenue generator
- Article → Why your upsell strategy is failing: When digital & voice live in different worlds
- Article → AI will turn upselling from “send offers” into “solve needs”
- Interview → Beyond Price: The Future of Hotel Upselling and Cross-Selling with Scott Dahl and Mercedes Blanco
Lead nurture campaigns
Stay top-of-mind and drive conversions — Guests rarely book at the first touchpoint, so this course teaches you how to keep the guest journey engaging. Learn when to use automation and when to provide the human touch so that your property remains top-of-mind.
- How to Guide → Lead nurturing for hotels: From inquiry to confirmation
- Customer stories →coming soon
- Article → coming soon
- Article → coming soon
- Webinar → coming soon
OTA winback strategies
Regain control of the guest relationship — OTAs have their place, but this course teaches you how to own the guest relationship. Learn how to convert OTA bookers into loyal, direct-booking guests with smart post-stay and remarketing strategies.
Scheduled for December 2025
