Case Studies
Case Study: A Hospitality Brand's Digital Turnaround in Zanzibar
30 July 2026 · 8 min read
A boutique property in Zanzibar was profitable but fragile: almost all bookings arrived through online travel agents, commission was eating the margin, and the brand had no direct relationship with a single guest. Anonymised, with the client's permission, here is what we changed.
The core problem was not marketing
It was infrastructure. The website took nine seconds to load on a Tanzanian mobile connection, the booking engine broke on Safari, and there were no photographs shot in the last three years. No amount of advertising fixes that funnel.
The rebuild
- ✦New site engineered for mobile-first, sub-two-second loads on 3G, with a booking engine tested on real devices.
- ✦A full photography and video shoot — rooms, food, staff, the walk from the beach.
- ✦Search content targeting the questions guests actually type before booking, in English and key European languages.
- ✦Email capture at every touchpoint, then a pre-arrival and post-stay sequence.
- ✦Paid social retargeting only, rather than broad prospecting, until the funnel converted.
Why the OTA relationship stayed
The goal was never to leave the platforms. It was to stop being owned by them. OTAs are excellent discovery channels; they are expensive loyalty channels. The strategy was: discover there, rebook direct.
Transferable lessons
Fix the destination before you buy the traffic. Own the guest data. And treat the website as the highest-leverage asset in a hospitality brand's stack — because it is.