Case Study
Reducing OTA Dependence and Driving Direct Bookings Through Strategic Marketing
Baines’ River Camp is a luxury safari lodge situated on the northern banks of the Lower Zambezi in Zambia. Known for its exclusive setting, outstanding hospitality, and incredible wildlife experiences, from game drives to tiger fishing, Baines’ caters to a discerning audience seeking authentic, high-end safari adventures.
Despite its world-class offering, Baines’ River Camp faced challenges that are common in the high-end safari sector:
Leading to reduced margins and limited brand control.
Weakening brand awareness and guest engagement.
Impacting discoverability in key source markets.
Contributing to a lower website conversion rate.
Making it difficult to assess ROI on marketing spend.
Baines’ River Camp continues to go from strength to strength as their visibility and marketing grow with them. In 2025, they saw a 41% year-on-year increase in booking revenue. Making it their most successful year since inception. In 2026, we helped them surpass that yardstick at the end of April.
We optimised site structure, metadata, and targeted keywords to improve rankings for terms like Zambezi safari lodges and tiger fishing in Zambia.
We launched dynamic campaigns targeting high-value international travellers, supported by sharp creative and retargeting funnels.
A new calendar was rolled out, weaving in storytelling, wildlife highlights, guest experiences, and strategic offers, such as Stay 3 Pay 2 and Tiger Fishing Getaways.
We analysed user behaviour, then restructured the site’s booking journey to remove friction points and improve direct conversion rates.
Clear dashboards were established to track bednights, OTA vs direct split, seasonal performance, and campaign ROI.
After 2 years of laying down the marketing groundwork to ensure Baines’ River Camp was highly visible and highly effective at generating leads, in 2026 we decided to shift the marketing strategy in a new direction: DIFFERENTIATION.
With the help of their team, we identified 3, unique international target markets (birders, father-son fishing and corporate retreats) that we could begin to focus our marketing efforts on. Creating content and landing pages speaking specifically to their respective desires. What we do hasn’t changed, but how we do it has become far more effective (see results below).
If you’re in the hospitality sector and struggling with visibility, low direct bookings, or over-reliance on OTAs, we can help.
We’ll tailor a 12-month growth plan that fits your lodge, location, and goals.
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