Canada-based Operto has introduced the new Predatory OTA tool within its marketing AI agent, aimed at helping hotels identify and limit direct booking losses resulting from third-party brand hijacking in online searches.

This feature enables hotels to receive real-time monitoring of search environments, allowing detection when affiliates run adverts targeting hotel brand names, imitate official listings, and divert potential guests to intermediary websites.

Such redirections often result in hotels losing out on bookings that would otherwise convert directly via their own channels.

Recent figures across the US and Canada indicate that more than 250,000 Google advertisements currently target hotel brand names.

These are frequently operated by affiliate booking sites acting beyond the hotels’ direct oversight.

According to Operto, Predatory OTA continuously tracks policy breaches by capturing evidence such as advertisement text and landing page details whenever third parties attempt to capitalise on branded traffic.

The system automatically flags these incidents and can initiate actions such as reporting the offending advertisements, revising paid search strategies, or deploying counter-campaigns to recover potential direct bookings.

With this tool, Operto’s marketing AI agent delivers ongoing oversight as part of the broader Operto ONE platform, which leverages AI teams across hotel distribution, guest relations, and operations.

By moving from occasional manual checks to automated, ongoing monitoring and response, hotels can gain better control over customer acquisition and address potential revenue loss due to unauthorised third-party activity.

Operto’s integration of the tool is intended to provide hotels with a more practical mechanism for safeguarding their direct booking channels and preserving revenue.

Operto CEO Tim Major said: “When a guest searches for a hotel by name, that intent should convert directly to a hotel without a 20%-30% penalty of OTA [online travel agencies] fees and a poor, incorrect guest booking experience. Instead, affiliates are intercepting that demand using nefarious practices, often without the hotel realising it.

“Operto’s marketing agent, with the Predatory OTA Skill, gives hotels a way to see exactly where that demand is being diverted and allows the agent to take action to recover it.”