Mark Simpson is a hospitality marketing expert and professional Gypsy / nomad from North Yorkshire, United Kingdom. He is a passionate advocate of the Book Direct movement and works tirelessly to help other hospitality owners boost their direct bookings, and in turn their profits.

In 1990, Mark's parents established The Grainary - a Farm Stay B&B located in a renovated property close to Scarborough and Whitby. After traveling the world coaching soccer to U18's and helping discover the next Pele, he returned back to the Family Farm Stay property to help his parents get more eyes on the business.

Within 18 months of Mark being back home, he increased direct bookings for The Grainary by 30%, turned it into a “Top 3 Location to Stay” in Scarborough, and made The Grainary the most followed independent location on Facebook using digital marketing strategies he soon found were being underused in the hospitality industry.

Mark used this hands-on hospitality marketing experience to establish Boostly, and began advising other hospitality businesses in the local area on how to market their properties and increase their profits via direct bookings.

The Carlton House in Scarborough worked with Mark and brought in over £6k worth of direct bookings within their first two days of operation.

Word spread, and hospitality owners from all over the UK started to seek Mark out to boost their direct bookings and provide bespoke solutions to the hospitality marketing challenges they too, were facing.

He started building direct booking websites for holiday rentals, which allowed businesses like Low Urpeth Farm Cottages to get their first-ever direct reservations, and stop losing thousands of pounds a month in commission costs to the third-party booking agencies.

In addition to his hospitality marketing work, Mark established an online community for hospitality owners all over the world to connect on Facebook. In a short space of time, Mark helped transform the marketing strategy for over 1,000 hospitality businesses in the group including:

-Emma Khan who was able cut down on 20% of OTA commission costs as a result of Mark’s training

-Jenny McCabe, who increased her direct bookings by 52%

-Karren Marshallay, who added £2,000 worth of direct bookings using Mark’s email marketing templates

-Callum Morgan who increased his bed and breakfast profits by £60,000

Mark’s free Hospitality Community Facebook Group of over 5,000 members, is currently one of the most engaged groups on Facebook.

In 2018, Mark created The Boostly Academy, a unique concept that allows hospitality property owners from small hotels to vacation rentals, bed and breakfasts, holiday lets and more, to learn his proven digital marketing strategies so they can take control of their own hospitality marketing efforts from anywhere in the world, on their time.

Boostly Academy now has over 200 members, and together have brought in more than £500,000 in direct bookings.

The Boost Hospitality Podcast is celebrating its 8th season in 2020. Helpful topics covered over the years have extended well beyond branding, social media, authentic email marketing and online reputation management.

To help hospitality owners understand their guests on a deeper level, an entire season early on was devoted entirely to an in-depth look at the psychology of the booking process through the eyes of a guest beginning with planning and research, through deciding, booking and eventual buyer’s remorse.

In 2020, podcast episodes have increased by 60% to inspire hospitality owners worldwide during the Covid-19 pandemic to stay stronger together with content ranging from sharing stories to practical ways to remove unnecessary business spending, channeling energy into marketing audits, and looking ahead with positivity for how to operate in a post covid world.

In addition to Mark’s podcast, the Boostly YouTube Channel has been viewed over 40,000 times, and the Boostly Blog visited over 35,000 times - providing countless hospitality owners around the globe with the practical hospitality marketing guidance needed to increase their profits via direct bookings.