Independent tour operators are losing margin, control, and visibility — to OTAs that take 25% of every booking, and to AI engines that decide who gets recommended in the first place. We rebuild your marketing across five surfaces, so the next decade of bookings belongs to you. Not Viator. Not Booking.com. Not whichever algorithm is fashionable next quarter.
Worked with Safari and Beach · Sawdays · Bramble Ski · Finest Days · Coastal Living · Rated 5★ by 30+ operators on Google · NETTY Award-winning sustainable website design
Booked Wild is a marketing agency for independent tour operators, lodges, and experience providers across Europe. We diagnose your business across five surfaces — Pitch, Publish, Product, Profile, Partnership — then rebuild the ones leaking commission, conversion, and AI visibility. Three engagement tiers (Sprint, Programme, Flagship), plus standalone website design and our Direct Booking OS CRM. Every engagement starts with one free 45-minute call and a written gap analysis PDF within five working days. There is no obligation to buy anything.
You built your tour business because you love the place, the people, and the work. You did not build it to hand 25% of every booking to a platform that won't even tell you the guest's name.
But here you are.
You are not failing at marketing. You are being squeezed by an industry rebuilt around platforms — and the next squeeze, AI search, has already started. Most operators haven't noticed yet.
Every booking platform, every algorithm, every OTA listing is land you don't own. Terms change. Commissions rise. Algorithms shift. You absorb every one of those changes — because you have no choice.
Every commission paid is a piece of your freedom handed away.
Booked Wild exists to change the equation. We move you from rented land — OTAs, third-party algorithms, marketing tools you don't control — to owned infrastructure: your CRM, your email list, your AI citation surface, your authority entity, your direct booking flow, your partnership network.
Eighteen months in, the goal is simple. You should be measurably less dependent on platforms you don't own than the day you started.
Every tour operator marketing operation in 2026 runs across five distinct surfaces. They're built differently. They're done by different people. They compound on different timelines. No single tactic touches all five.
Most operators we meet are running two surfaces well and three poorly. The 45-minute call maps which two are working, which three are leaking, and which one to fix first.
Sharpened, defended, stated everywhere a prospect or AI engine reads about you. The same sentence on your website hero, Tripadvisor description, Google Business Profile, Bokun listing, and LinkedIn bio. Most operators have three different pitches across three platforms — and AI engines return a competitor's positioning when asked who they are.
Schema-marked journal articles, named-author bylines, founder LinkedIn, podcast appearances. The work that compounds in AI search and pulls cold prospects into your funnel — quietly, over months. Most operator blogs have three posts from 2022 and a tagline.
Plain-text pricing. FAQPage schema. Citation blocks. Multiple price points and clear ascension paths. Tripadvisor and Google Business Profile rebuilt so AI engines can actually quote you. The pages that say "contact us for a quote" are invisible. We make them visible.
Trade press placements. Founder bio resolvable across Wikipedia, Crunchbase, LinkedIn, and Google Knowledge Panel as a structured entity. Case studies prepared so prospects find proof before they ask. The work that turns you from a generic business into a named authority.
Regional Destination Marketing Organisations. Tourism boards. Complementary local operators. Embedded itineraries that cross-feature your wider region. The network most operators never build — and the one that quietly delivers their best-fit guests for years.
"OTAs are not partners. They are platforms designed to own your customer and your margins. The Five Surfaces are how you take that ownership back."
Every engagement starts with the same free 45-minute call and written PDF. What you do next depends on what we find.
30 DAYS · FIXED FEE
For solo experience providers and single-property operators. We sharpen your pitch, engineer your website for AI extraction, and deploy schema sitewide. You leave visible to AI search and structured for citation. You run the rest yourself with our templates.
£1,500 standalone £3,000 with website
MONTHLY · 3-MONTH MINIMUM, THEN ROLLING
For independent properties and boutique operators. All five surfaces in motion. Direct Booking OS included from month two. Website rebuilt when it becomes the ceiling — not on a calendar. Monthly reporting, quarterly strategy.
£1,500–£2,500/month scope-dependent
9 MONTHS · BY APPLICATION · 6 PLACES PER YEAR
For groups, collectives, and destination brands. Trade press, podcast outreach, DMO partnerships, embedded itineraries, full website rebuild, Direct Booking OS, monthly strategy. The full method at full intensity.
£30,000 fixed nine-month engagement
Available standalone
Built on Astro or WordPress, engineered for AI extraction, NETTY Award-winning sustainable performance. Solo Site, Operator Site, or Bespoke tier — quoted on the call.
Our white-labelled CRM that bolts onto Bokun, HostAway, Lodgify, Hospitable, Smoobu, Guesty (or whatever you use), and adds the marketing engine those platforms don't have. Email, SMS, WhatsApp, lifecycle nurture, review automation, attribution.
The 45-minute call decides which one fits. There is no obligation to buy anything.
Founder portrait placeholder.
Award-winning restaurateur and marketing agency founder with over a decade of experience in hospitality and digital marketing.
Colin has worked with brands including Safari and Beach, Sawdays, Bramble Ski, Finest Days, and Coastal Living — helping adventure travel providers grow direct bookings through brand, website, and marketing systems built to last.
"I started Booked Wild because I watched too many brilliant operators slowly hand their businesses over to platforms that didn't care about them. We're here to help you take it back."
Pitch, Publish, Product, Profile, Partnership. Where you are, today, on each one.
Most operators are surprised by both — by what they're already doing well, and by which surface is silently bleeding the most margin.
Three to five priorities specific to your business. Use it to fix the work yourself, hand it to your existing marketer, or come back to us. There's no pressure either way.
You can use the PDF to fix the work yourself, hand it to your existing marketer, or come back to us. There's no pressure either way.
OTAs aren't getting cheaper. AI search isn't going away. Every quarter you wait, your competitors get deeper into ChatGPT's answer set, deeper into trade press, deeper into tourism board partnerships. The work compounds — for whoever starts first.
Don't build your business on rented land.
Own your bookings. Own your brand. Own your future.
Booked Wild is a marketing agency for independent tour operators, lodges, and experience providers across Europe. We rebuild operator marketing across five surfaces — Pitch, Publish, Product, Profile, Partnership — to reduce OTA dependence and grow direct bookings through AI-citable, owned infrastructure.
Independent tour operators, single-property hospitality businesses, boutique travel brands, and destination collectives — typically 1–10 staff, currently dependent on OTAs for 60–90% of bookings, and frustrated with where that's heading.
Nothing. The call is free, and the written gap analysis PDF that follows within five working days is also free. There is no obligation to engage further.
Pitch and Product foundations take 30–90 days. AI citation gains typically appear within 60–120 days of schema and content deployment. Direct booking percentage shifts measurably over 12–18 months. Profile and Partnership compound over years, not weeks. Anyone promising overnight results is selling you something we wouldn't.
No. We work with whatever inventory system you already use — Bokun, HostAway, Lodgify, Hospitable, Smoobu, Guesty, or direct email and forms. Our Direct Booking OS adds the marketing layer those platforms don't have (CRM, email, SMS, lifecycle nurture, attribution) without replacing the booking engine you've already invested in.
Sprint: £1,500 standalone, £3,000 with a Solo Site. Programme: £1,500–£2,500 per month, scope-dependent, three-month minimum then rolling. Flagship: £30,000 fixed for nine months, six places per year by application. Standalone website design and Direct Booking OS are quoted on the call.
SEO agencies optimise for Google's blue-link results. We optimise for the engines travellers actually use in 2026 — ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews — alongside Google. We also build the structural infrastructure (CRM, email, partnership network, founder authority entity) that compounds whether or not search engines change their algorithms tomorrow.
No. The work is structural, not promotional. We build the surfaces, systems, and authority that make your marketing compound. We hand you the keys.
Booked Wild is based in the United Kingdom and works with independent operators across Europe — from Finnish Lapland lodges to Mediterranean experience providers and UK-based adventure travel brands.
One call. Five surfaces. A written PDF in five working days.