In 2025, hotels across the UK are facing an increasingly familiar dilemma: how to maintain visibility, guest engagement, and brand strength while cutting back on marketing spend. And while economic pressures are nothing new, a series of recent studies and conversations across the hospitality sector suggest that 2024 may have marked a tipping point in how hotels think about marketing investment.
A Cost-Conscious Industry
According to a Gartner survey published by The Wall Street Journal in May 2024, average marketing budgets across major industries dropped to just 7.7% of overall company revenue — the lowest level since 2021 and well below pre-pandemic averages of 11%. The findings, drawn from nearly 400 marketing leaders in Europe and North America, reflected a widespread pivot toward efficiency and performance-based campaigns.
In hospitality, where margins were already tight and operational costs surged throughout 2024, this shift was even more pronounced. A separate review by Brand Finance found that hotels globally reduced their marketing spend by 27% between 2019 and 2023, largely in response to cash pressures and cautious recovery planning. Many brands chose to reduce long-term brand campaigns and reinvest in short-term direct response activity, often at the expense of reach and brand equity.
By early 2025, these trends have manifested in a more cautious, fragmented approach to marketing — particularly among independent hotels and regional operators. There’s less money on the table, but the need to stand out hasn’t gone away.
Hotels Are Cutting — But Can They Keep Growing?
Rachel Cook, a Director at Vision Launch, a Marketing Agency who specialise in promoting the Hospitality Sector, says she’s seeing a growing tension among hotel owners and managers.
“There’s an understandable instinct to cut marketing when the numbers tighten — it’s one of the biggest controllable lines in the P&L. But the challenge is, visibility still matters. Guest behaviour hasn’t changed just because your budget has. If anything, the market is noisier now.”
Rachel argues that cutting marketing doesn’t necessarily mean halting activity — but it does require sharper focus.
“One of the biggest mindset shifts I’m trying to help hotels make in 2025 is this: spend is not the same as strategy. You can cap your marketing spend without shrinking your impact — but only if you’re clear on what actually moves the needle.”
She continues:
“I’ve seen hotels slash thousands off their ad budgets and see no drop in bookings — simply because they were wasting money on broad-target campaigns, vanity social posts, or third-party platforms that gave them very little control. Tight budgets force better questions. That’s a good thing.”
The OTA Elephant in the Room
One area under increased scrutiny in 2025 is how much hotels have come to rely on third-party Online Travel Agents (OTAs) like Booking.com — not just for bookings, but as a substitute for their own marketing.
But as legal and regulatory pressure builds on Booking.com, following the €486 million fine by Spain’s CNMC in 2024, many hotels are reassessing that dependency. The ECJ’s backing of anti-competition claims last autumn, followed by Booking.com’s ongoing appeal, has prompted renewed discussion across the sector.
Rachel sees opportunity here:
“If a hotel feels it’s been unfairly penalised or forced into one-sided contracts, there may now be a route to claim back some of that spend. That money could be reinvested directly into the brand — SEO, better CRM, staff training, content creation. Things that build equity long term.”
She notes that some law firms are now offering no win, no fee models for Booking.com-related claims — especially for hotels with a clear booking history and exposure to the offending parity clauses.
“It’s about reclaiming lost ground. Not just legally, but commercially. There’s real power in taking that pressure off and redirecting it into something that builds your business.”
2025: The Year of Smarter Spend
As we move deeper into 2025, the smartest hotels are not the ones cutting marketing — they’re the ones optimising it. That means:
- Clear ROI tracking (no more vanity metrics)
- A renewed push for direct bookings
- Leveraging owned data (email lists, CRM)
- Using guest feedback loops to shape messaging
- Carefully balancing OTA use without surrendering control
For many in the sector, marketing no longer means big billboards or expensive retargeting campaigns. It means knowing who your ideal guests are, what they care about, and how to reach them — consistently and affordably.
“The money might be tighter in 2025,” Rachel says, “but the strategy doesn’t have to be. If anything, this is the best time to rethink your brand and get sharper about how you show up.”
