163K followers, and the job was to stop giving the margin to Booking.com.

A luxury private-stay brand running three distinctive UAE properties — the Japanese House in Ras Al Khaimah, Al Junaidi Farm in Sharjah, and Armani House in Abu Dhabi. Al Junaidi alone runs nine bedrooms, four outdoor pools, horse riding and a private cinema.

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Role

Marketing lead — Outbox Agency

Sector

Hospitality & Leisure

Location

Sharjah · RAK · Abu Dhabi

Period

2024 — 2025

The brief

A brand with 163,000 Instagram followers and 532 posts was still taking a meaningful share of its bookings through OTAs, paying commission on demand it had generated itself.

The situation

A large, genuinely engaged social audience that was not converting into direct bookings — attention was being monetised by Booking.com and Airbnb instead.
Three properties with completely different guest profiles, being marketed as one undifferentiated brand.
Extreme seasonality: UAE staycation demand collapses in summer and spikes on long weekends, so an evenly-spread budget wastes most of itself.
High-consideration, high-ticket bookings where a group organiser needs to convince five other people before anyone pays.

What I did

Rebuilt the direct-booking path

The enquiry flow was restructured so the shortest route from an Instagram story to a held date ran through the brand's own channels, not a marketplace listing.

Gave each property its own audience

The Japanese House, Al Junaidi Farm and Armani House were separated into distinct campaign structures with distinct creative, because a couple booking a design retreat and a family booking a nine-bedroom farm are not the same buyer.

Concentrated budget into demand windows

Spend was weighted toward the booking windows that precede long weekends and national holidays, rather than spread evenly across a calendar where half the year does not convert.

Built for the group decision

Content and landing pages were designed to be forwarded — the organiser needs assets that sell the property to the rest of the group without them ever visiting the site.