Over the past few years, many hotels in Georgia have navigated low seasons relatively well, supported by steady demand from travelers coming from Israel, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia. For many resort and city hotels, especially in Tbilisi, Batumi, and along the Black Sea coast, group bookings played a crucial role in maintaining occupancy during slower periods.
This year, however, the market once again reminded hoteliers just how vulnerable hospitality can be to external factors.
Many hotels experienced a much sharper decline in group business than expected. Some properties saw group reservations reduced or cancelled by as much as 40–60%. Individual demand also softened, although not nearly as dramatically.
Periods like these clearly expose the risks of relying too heavily on a single source of business. Group bookings can quickly fill rooms, while OTAs provide instant visibility. Yet neither necessarily leads to a more profitable and resilient business.
This is one of the key reasons why direct bookings have become an increasingly important topic across Georgia over the past two years.
Today, more hotel owners and revenue managers are looking beyond occupancy rates. They are paying closer attention to net profitability — taking into account OTA commissions, discounts, marketing expenses, and the overall cost of acquiring each guest.
Because high occupancy no longer automatically means high profitability.
This becomes particularly evident during peak season, when OTA bookings still account for more than 60–80% of total sales in many Georgian resort hotels. Under this sales mix, even a healthy ADR does not always translate into strong financial performance.
At the same time, guest behavior has also evolved significantly.
Following the pandemic and a period of geopolitical uncertainty, booking windows have become much shorter. More travelers are making their booking decisions just a few days before arrival. For hotels, this means greater pressure on pricing, faster reaction to shifts in demand, and much stronger competition within OTA marketplaces.
But another shift is quietly reshaping the industry.
The hotel website is no longer just an online brochure. It is increasingly becoming a true eCommerce platform — and one of the biggest opportunities to improve hotel profitability.
At Exely, we see more hotels investing not only in a booking engine, but in a complete digital sales infrastructure that includes mobile-first website experiences, conversion optimization, payment integrations, CRM marketing, retargeting, and the effective use of first-party guest data.
Because modern direct booking is no longer simply about adding a “Book Now” button. It is about creating a seamless digital journey that guides guests from their very first search to a completed reservation — without sending them back to an OTA.
Mobile traffic provides a good example. For many hotels, between 65% and 75% of all website visitors now come from smartphones. Yet the booking experience on many hotel websites is still far from mobile-friendly. A guest opens the website, attempts to make a reservation on their phone, encounters a complicated payment process, an unintuitive interface, or too many booking steps—and simply returns to Booking.com.
Not because the OTA offers a better price. But because it offers a smoother experience.
This is why direct sales are increasingly becoming more than just a revenue management initiative. Hotels are beginning to view direct bookings not as an additional distribution channel, but as a strategic way to take control of revenue, guest relationships, and long-term profitability.
And perhaps this is the most important transformation taking place in the Georgian hospitality market today.
The conversation is no longer just about filling rooms. It is about adopting a more holistic hotel eCommerce strategy, where the website, booking engine, digital marketing, and guest experience work together as a single revenue ecosystem.
