Cost-of-acquisition by segment and channel

Every booking has a cost of acquisition. The €240 BAR room booked direct on your website costs you maybe €4 in payment processing and €2 in technology overhead. The same room booked on Booking.com costs you €36 in commission. The same room sold to a wholesale partner costs you the contracted discount — often 20-26% off BAR — plus a payment delay of 30-45 days. RevPAR does not see any of this. GOPPAR sees all of it. The operator-level revenue conversation lives in that gap.

What a cost-of-acquisition table actually looks like

At the 240-key Antalya resort we maintain a simple table updated quarterly. For each segment-channel pair, four columns: gross ADR, all-in acquisition cost (commission + payment + technology + variable marketing attributed), net ADR, and percentage cost of acquisition. The picture for a normalized summer week looks something like this.

Why this matters at the operator level

A property running 64% OTA mix at €38 average acquisition cost is bleeding €2.4M of net revenue per year vs. the same property at 48% OTA mix. That €2.4M is GOPPAR. It is the difference between a property that hits owner targets and one that does not. RevPAR may be identical between the two scenarios — the channel mix is invisible at the RevPAR line.

The shift takes 18-30 months

Moving a property's mix from 64% OTA to 48% OTA is not a quarterly project. It requires a direct-channel investment plan (paid search, metasearch budget, loyalty enrollment, on-property capture), a measurement infrastructure (last-click attribution, assisted conversions, GA4 funnels), and disciplined rate parity. Owners want it done in two quarters. The honest timeline is 18-30 months and the lift is non-linear — most of the gain shows up in months 14-22.

Telling the owner this up front, with a milestone plan, is the difference between earning credit for the work and getting fired in month 9 for "not moving the needle." I have seen both. The credit version is shorter.