Questions hoteliers ask us

An audit covers the digital surfaces a guest sees before booking: your website and booking flow, search and local visibility, OTA listings, rate presentation, reputation and social, and how your distribution mix is working. Each area is checked against a fixed checklist, and every finding is recorded with evidence rather than opinion. The exact areas are agreed with you in writing before work begins — see our hotel audit services for the full list.

Delivery timing depends on scope size, how many areas are in play and how quickly data is supplied — your written scope states the date before any work starts. Multi-property work takes longer because scoring has to be calibrated across locations so results stay comparable. We do not quote a turnaround we cannot hold for your specific scope.

Read-only access only where a review depends on it — Google Search Console, Google Analytics, your Google Business Profile, and extranet or channel-manager exports for listing and parity checks. We ask for the minimum the agreed scope requires, and much of the evidence is collected publicly without any access at all. If something cannot be accessed, we record it as a limitation rather than guessing.

Digital audits are delivered mostly remotely, which keeps travel and stay costs out of the fee. On-site days can be added when a scope genuinely needs them, for example operational checks that depend on walking the property. Whether on-site time is included or excluded is stated in the written scope before you commit.

Yes. Groups are audited with standardised instruments and a calibration step so scores mean the same thing across locations — something single-property work does not need. That calibration is real extra work and is scoped separately rather than hidden in the headline. Multi-property scopes are set out on our audit services page.

No. Digital audits are priced per audit area against a scope fixed before work begins, so the fee follows the work rather than a sticker price. Publishing one number would misrepresent what different properties actually need. You can see how we frame scope tiers on our pricing page.

Five variables do most of the work: how many audit areas are in scope, how many properties and markets are covered, the depth applied within each area, whether on-site time is needed, and whether multi-property calibration is required. A raw findings list also costs less than a scored, prioritised report with a walkthrough — proposals rarely volunteer that difference. Our hotel audit cost guide explains the same logic in detail.

Yes. You receive a written scope with exclusions and a fixed fee before work begins, so the number does not drift during delivery. If you ask to add areas mid-project, that is a scope change and we quote it separately rather than absorbing it quietly. Fixed fee, fixed date and a fixed deliverable list are the baseline of every proposal.

They are unrelated services with different pricing logics. A statutory financial audit is priced on turnover, entity count and statutory scope by a firm governed by professional norms, and it says nothing about how the property performs with guests or on the channels where it sells rooms. A digital audit is priced per audit area and delivered mostly remotely — see the full comparison of the four audit types.

No. We do not sell channel managers, booking engines or media, so a free audit would be a sales call with a PDF attached — the model we deliberately avoid. An initial review of your public presence happens before we quote, at no cost, and you are under no obligation to proceed. You can see exactly what a finished deliverable looks like in the sample audit report.

A written report with every finding scored and ordered by impact and effort, plus the evidence behind each one — screenshots, locations and reasons, not opinions. It is designed to be handed to a team rather than filed away. The sample audit report shows the real structure.

A working session where we walk your team through the report in priority order and agree what to fix first, who owns it and what can wait. It exists so findings become a sequenced action list instead of a spreadsheet nobody opens again. The walkthrough is included in every scope we quote.

You decide what to implement and in what order — we help you prioritise and can work alongside your existing team or partners, but we do not take over your operations. If you want fixes verified rather than assumed, a re-check can be scoped after the work is done. Budget staff time for implementation in the quarter after delivery, because the fee is only the first half of the cost of using an audit.

No. We audit and advise. Implementation sits with your team, agency or developers, and our recommendations are written so they can act on them without interpretation. Because we are independent, we will also tell you honestly when something is not worth spending on.

We are not affiliated with any OTA, booking engine or channel manager, and we do not earn commission on bookings or software. Our recommendations can therefore conclude that you do not need the thing being sold, which a conflicted provider structurally cannot do. The about page sets out how we work in public.

No — and any provider who promises them is telling you what you want to hear. Search rankings depend on competition, algorithm changes and work that happens after the audit; what an audit can do is show why you are not visible for real searches and rank the fixes by impact. We state limits plainly and never promise rankings, occupancy or revenue outcomes.

It is the profile that controls how you appear in Google Search and Maps — categories, photos, hours, posts and booking links. Yes, it is a standard audit area: profile completeness, category choices, photo quality and how the listing reads against competitors. The Google Business Profile audit page lists exactly what we check.

Where SEO is in scope, read-only Google Search Console access helps because it shows what Google actually sees — indexing status, queries and technical errors. Submitting a sitemap alone tells us very little; Search Console tells us whether it is being honoured. If access is refused, we work from public evidence and note the limitation in the report.

No honest fixed timeframe exists. Technical fixes can be recognised quickly by crawlers, while content and authority take months, and results vary with the competition in your market. An audit gives you a sequence and a rationale, not a calendar of guaranteed outcomes.

Yes — local search is where most hotels win or lose demand. We review your Google Business Profile, map presence, review profile and the consistency of your name, address and phone details across the web. The local SEO guide explains the same checks you can run yourself.

Rate parity is whether the same room, for the same dates and conditions, is priced the same everywhere it is sold. When a guest finds a lower rate elsewhere, trust in your direct channel drops and the booking — and the commission — moves elsewhere. Our rate parity guide covers how violations actually happen.

No. Audit My Hotel earns only from the audit fee. We do not take commission, referral payments or software margins, so a recommendation to rebalance OTA dependence is not a recommendation that pays us. Independence is the definition of the service rather than a premium feature of it.

Undercutting publicly usually creates more parity problems than it solves, and rate-cutting is the bluntest end of a set of levers that rarely need it. Most hotels gain more direct share from better rate presentation, a faster site, stronger review proof and a clearer booking flow than from being the cheapest option. The guide to more direct bookings without cutting OTA rates sets out those levers.

It depends on your market, property type and the guests you actually get — there is no universal answer, and the mix shifts by region. What an audit can do is show where your listings are weak, what each channel costs you in commission, and where demand is leaking. Our MakeMyTrip versus Booking.com comparison walks through the differences for Indian hotels.

Fix the leaks first: rate presentation, site speed, mobile booking flow, review proof, and a Google presence that answers the search before an OTA does. Direct share is usually won by removing friction rather than by spending more. The direct booking guide and the direct booking audit go deeper.