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Independent hotels & restaurants · Choosing the right provider
Choosing your agency: the 9 criteria and the types of provider for your direct bookings
All-in-one platforms, generalist agencies, specialists, consultancies, freelancers: there is no shortage of providers promising to fill your establishment, and no common benchmark lets you compare them. This page gives you a typology of providers and a grid of nine criteria, applicable to any provider. ARETA, an organic SEO and AI visibility agency specialising in hotels and restaurants, based in the Basque Country, publishes its prices and assesses itself against the 9 criteria of this grid like any other provider, with a full SEO audit from €1,500 excl. VAT.
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Since 2019Independent agency, founder trained in restaurant management at the Institut Paul BocusePublic pricingOur price list is online, full SEO audit from €1,500 excl. VAT9 criteriaAn assessment grid that we apply to ourselves -
The situation
Why this choice is so difficult
Are you looking for “the best hotel and restaurant marketing agency”? Let us say it up front: this question has no absolute answer. The best agency depends on your establishment, your distribution and what you can do in-house. There is a way to decide, with two tools: a typology of providers and a grid of criteria. But you still need to be able to compare, and the market does not help you do so.
- The promises are almost all alike. More visibility, more bookings, more reviews: put that way, they cannot be verified at the moment of signing, and say nothing about what you will be left with if you leave.
- Prices are opaque. Of the nine competing agencies we audited in August 2026, none displayed its prices. In these conditions it is hard to compare a quote with a market: every negotiation starts from zero.
- The evidence is incomplete. In that same sample, the published case studies show “afters” with no starting point. A finishing figure without a starting figure proves nothing.
- Meanwhile, the bill keeps running. Every booking that goes through a platform still, most of the time, costs you a commission or fees. Choosing the right provider means first choosing the one who will help you take back control of your distribution.
The right method: compare types of provider rather than brands, then apply the same grid of nine criteria to every candidate. That is exactly what this page does.
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The landscape
The six types of marketing provider in hotels and restaurants
We do not compare brands one by one: providers change, the families remain, and an agency that rates its competitors by name is not a credible judge. Here are the six families of provider you will meet. Each has a case in which it is the right choice: this is our conviction as a hotel and restaurant marketing agency, and it is what makes the grid in the next section usable.
Type of provider What it does well Its limits Who it is right for All-in-one technology platforms Equip you quickly: booking engine, website, e-mails, most often by subscription. Advice is tied to the tool: strategy, writing and trade-offs usually remain your responsibility, and reversibility depends on the contract. The establishment that first needs to equip itself, before thinking about distribution strategy. Generalist digital marketing agencies Master the channels: online advertising, social media, websites, often with sizeable teams. Knowledge of the trade varies widely: OTA mechanics, commissions and seasonality are not always central to their practice. The brand that needs multichannel advertising volume and brings its own industry expertise. Agencies specialising in hotels and restaurants Speak your trade: distribution, direct channel, seasonality, reviews. The brief is shorter. Restaurants are often a secondary focus and, of the nine agencies we audited in August 2026, none displayed its prices. The independent establishment looking for a long-term partner on its visibility and its direct channel. This is ARETA's family. Revenue management consultancies Steer prices and occupancy: the effect on revenue per room can be quick. They optimise existing demand more than they create it, and the format rarely applies to a restaurant. The hotel whose main challenge is pricing and managing occupancy. Freelancers and collectives Flexibility, a modest entry cost, a direct relationship with the person doing the work. The scope is often limited to one or two areas of expertise, and continuity rests on one person or a small business. The targeted, bounded assignment: a website to redesign, a profile to optimise. Outsourced marketing director Steers everything on a part-time basis: priorities, budgets, choice and management of providers. It does not carry out everything itself: allow for an additional budget for the projects delivered. The establishment with several projects running and no in-house marketing manager. Two related questions, covered elsewhere. The choice between agency, platform, consultant or in-house is a question of organisational model, which we will cover on a dedicated page, as we will what each tool is for. Here, we stay on the question of the provider: who to entrust your direct bookings to, and on what criteria.
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The assessment grid
The 9 criteria for choosing your agency
To choose a hotel and restaurant marketing agency, nine criteria allow you to compare all types of provider: genuine sector specialisation, the scope covered across hotel and restaurant, pricing transparency, ownership of customer data, published quantified evidence, independence from any one tool, SEO and GEO capability, language and geographical coverage, and the commitment model. Ask these questions word for word in meetings, to all candidates, ourselves included.
Criterion The question to ask The warning sign 1. Genuine sector specialisation “Show me your references in hotels and restaurants, and who handled them.” A “sectors” page that is all facade, with no verifiable reference and no contact who knows your trade. 2. Hotel and restaurant scope “Do you work on both trades, with their own platforms and seasonality?” A pitch written entirely for hotels and pasted onto a restaurant, or the other way round. 3. Pricing transparency “Are your prices public, and can I see them before the first meeting?” Prices revealed after several meetings, impossible to compare with anything. 4. Ownership of customer data “Who will own the accounts, the access and the customer files?” Advertising, analytics or review accounts opened in the provider's name. 5. Published, measured proof “Show me a measured before and after, with the measurement method.” Spectacular results with no starting point, or no repeatable method. 6. Independence from any one tool “Do you earn your living from advice, or from selling software that your audit will recommend to me?” A diagnosis that always concludes with the same tool, whatever your case. 7. SEO and GEO capability “How do you work on organic SEO and visibility in answer engines, and how do you measure it?” AI missing from the pitch, or promised with no method for measuring citation. 8. Language and geographic coverage “Who writes, in which language, and do they know my market and my customers?” Automatically translated content, and no knowledge of the French market and its platforms. 9. Engagement model “What happens if I stop? What belongs to me when I leave?” A long commitment with a vague exit clause, or one that lets you leave without your assets. No provider ticks every box, and that is not the point. The grid shows whether a candidate's weaknesses fall on what matters to you. A serious provider answers these nine questions without dodging them; that is already, in itself, a tenth criterion.
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What really sets them apart
Four criteria weigh more than the others
The nine criteria do not all carry the same weight. Four of them almost always separate the candidates, because they can be checked before you sign and they shape the rest of the relationship.
Criterion 3
Pricing transparency
A public price is a commitment: it can be compared, challenged, and it forces the provider to justify it. Of the nine competing agencies audited in August 2026, none displayed its prices; we display ours, and we detail the price of a hotel and restaurant marketing agency on a dedicated page.
Criterion 5
Measured proof, before and after
Demand the starting point: an “after” without a “before” proves nothing, and the right unit of measurement is the share of your revenue that goes through booking platforms. Learn to calculate your acquisition cost per channel; we will publish our case studies, measured before and after, once their owners have given written consent.
Criterion 7
SEO and GEO capability
Since 22 July 2026, Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode have been rolled out in France: some of your future customers now read generated answers that cite a handful of venues. A provider with no pitch and no measurement on being cited by AI leaves this ground without a pilot. Ask how they measure citation, not just whether they “do GEO”.
Criterion 9
The commitment, and the rules of your distribution
The exit clause matters more than the entry discount: what belongs to you at the end (website, content, accounts, data) makes the difference between a provider and a dependency. A good partner also knows the framework of your distribution: they can answer the question “are you allowed to charge less on your own website”, and what changes for Booking under regulators' scrutiny is part of the job too.
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In the interest of transparency
Where ARETA stands on this grid
In the typology, ARETA belongs to the family of agencies specialised in hotels and restaurants, with a precise combination: organic SEO and AI visibility, hotel and restaurant, public pricing. Of the nine competing agencies audited in August 2026, none ticked this combination. Here is our self-assessment on the grid, limits included.
What we tick
Specialisation, scope, SEO and GEO, pricing
A real practice of the sector, with a founder trained in restaurant management at the Institut Paul Bocuse; both trades covered, hotel and restaurant; organic SEO and AI visibility handled together, with citation measured at regular intervals; and public pricing, available before the first meeting.
What we do not do
Admitting our limits is part of the grid
We sell no booking engine, no channel manager and no PMS: our advice is not the sales channel for any booking software. We publish a customer review management tool, plus-avis-client.fr, and we declare it: it is the conflict of interest that criterion 6 invites you to make a provider admit. We do not do revenue management, online advertising is run with partners, and we never guarantee a position in Google or a citation by an AI: nobody controls those outputs.
Your assets
What belongs to you
Accounts, access and data remain in your venue's name. Our measurements are dated and our method is documented: a third party can repeat it, during the engagement and after it.
Our commitment
A clear framework, a measurable promise
We start with a free 30-minute meeting, with no audit invoiced beforehand. Our packages are public, shown as “from” prices, excl. VAT. Our commitment relates to something measurable: the share of your revenue that goes through booking platforms, never an invoice amount, and never a guaranteed result.
And to make the market more objective, we plan to publish in due course a barometer of direct booking in France: dated, sourced measurements, so that comparing providers no longer rests only on what each of them promises.
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Hotel or restaurant
The right provider depends on your trade
The nine criteria apply to both trades, but their weighting changes. What they have in common does not change: the provider you choose must know how to increase your direct bookings, not just produce visibility that flows back to the intermediaries.
You run a hotel
Start with criteria 1, 5 and 7: your challenge is the share of direct bookings against online travel agencies. Ask the candidate how they work on independent hotel SEO, on which queries, and how they measure the result in bookings rather than traffic. Be wary of a pitch that confuses filling rooms with distribution: filling them through platforms does not reduce your dependence.
You run a restaurant
Check criteria 2 and 6 first: some providers paste a hotel pitch onto restaurants, others live off selling a booking tool. Ask the candidate what they know about organic SEO for a restaurant, and how they handle platform commissions for a restaurant: booking, guides and delivery are not managed like hotel rooms.
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Before you sign
Six habits that avoid nasty surprises
The grid is for the first sort; these six habits are for the moment you conclude.
- Ask for a before and an after. A measured starting point, a method, a dated result. Without a “before”, every “after” is a sales argument, not proof.
- Check who owns the accounts. Advertising accounts, statistics, business profile, customer files: everything in your venue's name, from day one, in writing.
- Demand verifiable reporting. You must be able to check every figure yourself, or have a third party check it, without depending on the provider's tool.
- Walk away from ranking or citation guarantees. Nobody controls Google's results or the output of an AI model. The absence of a stated guarantee is a sign of seriousness, not of weakness.
- Read the exit clause before the price clause. Length of commitment, notice period, what happens to the content, the website and the data at the end: that is where dependency hides.
- Compare at least two families of providers. A single quote cannot be judged. Two candidates from different families, run through the same grid, help the right choice emerge.
These six habits fit into one conversation: that is the purpose of our free 30-minute meeting, whichever agency you choose afterwards.
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Frequently asked questions
FAQ | Choosing your hotel and restaurant marketing agency
The questions hoteliers and restaurateurs ask us most often when choosing a marketing provider.
How do you choose a hotel and restaurant marketing agency?
First identify the family of provider you need, then apply the same grid to every candidate: real specialisation, hotel and restaurant scope, pricing transparency, data ownership, measured proof, tool independence, SEO and GEO capability, language, engagement model. Searched without accents, people also write agence marketing hotellerie restauration, or agence marketing hotel: the method stays the same.
What is the best hotel and restaurant marketing agency?
This question has no absolute answer, and be wary of anyone who calls themselves the “best agency”: the best agency is the one that fits your venue, your distribution situation and your budget. The grid of nine criteria on this page exists precisely to turn this unanswerable question into a reasoned decision.
Do you need a generalist agency or one specialised in hotels and restaurants?
Both exist for good reasons. A generalist brings firepower on advertising channels; a specialist brings knowledge of the trade: distribution, commissions, seasonality, reviews. The deciding point is real specialisation: ask for references in hotels and restaurants, and who handled them. A “hospitality sector” page on an agency's website does not prove hands-on practice of the trade.
How much does a marketing agency cost for a hotel or restaurant?
We found no public price scale: of the nine competing agencies we audited in August 2026, none displayed its prices, and ranges depend first of all on the scope entrusted. That is why we publish our own pricing, available before any meeting: our full SEO audit starts at €1,500 excl. VAT, with each offer shown as a “from” price, excl. VAT. Demand the same transparency from any candidate.
What should you check before signing with an agency?
Three checks remove most of the risk: proof (a measured before and after, not an isolated end figure), ownership (accounts, access and data in your venue's name, in writing) and exit (length of commitment, notice period, what happens to your content and your website at the end of the contract). If any one of the three answers is vague, the price no longer matters.
Who should own the accounts and the data?
You, always. Business profile, advertising accounts, statistics, customer files, website access: everything must be opened in your venue's name, with the provider only invited with the necessary rights. This is your guarantee of reversibility: the day the collaboration stops, you keep your assets and your history.
Why is visibility in AI becoming a criterion for choosing an agency?
Because your customers have started putting their questions to answer engines: Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode have been rolled out in France since 22 July 2026, and these answers highlight a few venues before the classic results page, with AI Mode going as far as replacing it. A provider with no pitch and no measurement method for this visibility leaves a whole channel without a pilot. Ask how they measure citation, not just whether they “do GEO”.
Do you need an agency, a platform, an independent consultant or a hire?
This is a question of organisational model, separate from the choice of provider. As a first approach: the platform equips, the freelancer handles a defined assignment, the agency carries a long-term project, and hiring makes sense when marketing becomes a full-time role. We will dedicate a page to this trade-off; in the meantime, the grid of nine criteria applies to all four models.
A question that is not on the list?
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Free meeting · 30 min · no obligation
How about applying the grid together?
Thirty minutes, at your venue or by video call: where your distribution goes today, which families of providers fit your situation, and the questions to put to the candidates you will consult, us included. The distribution diagnosis is the way in, with no invoiced audit and no commitment. Head office in Bayonne, on-site work in the Basque Country and Béarn, and remote work anywhere in France.
Email[email protected]Phone06 50 82 74 13Address2 place du Château Vieux
64100 BayonneLinkedInARETAMonday to Friday, 8am to 8pm
Last updated: 26 October 2026
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