The Hospitality Marketing Technology Stack

The Definitive Guide to Building the Right Marketing Tech Stack for Your Hospitality Business — Without Wasting £000s on Tools You Don't Need.

ABOUT THIS GUIDE

The hospitality tech market is overwhelming. There are 200+ booking platforms, 100+ CRM tools, dozens of review managers, and a new "AI-powered" platform launching every week. Most operators end up with a stack that's expensive, fragmented, and doesn't talk to itself. This guide gives you a clear, opinionated framework for choosing, integrating, and getting value out of your marketing tech — whatever your venue type, size, or budget.

What You'll Learn:

• How to design a marketing tech stack from first principles, not from sales pitches
• The platforms worth paying for, the ones to avoid, and the free alternatives that actually work
• How to integrate booking, POS, CRM, email, and analytics so your data flows automatically
• Recommended stacks for venues with budgets of £0, £200/month, £1,000/month, and £5,000+/month
• How to evaluate new tools without falling for the demo
• The migration playbook when you outgrow your current platforms

Who This Guide Is For:

• Independent restaurant, bar, and pub operators
• Boutique hotel marketers building or upgrading their stack
• Marketing managers at hospitality groups consolidating tools across venues
• Hospitality founders launching new venues
• Anyone who's currently paying for tools they don't use

TABLE OF CONTENTS

SECTION 1: TECH STACK STRATEGY

• 1. Why Most Hospitality Tech Stacks Are a Mess
• 2. The Tech Stack Strategy Framework
• 3. The "Job To Be Done" Approach to Choosing Tools

SECTION 2: THE CORE STACK

• 4. Booking & Reservations: OpenTable, SevenRooms, ResDiary, Mews & More
• 5. POS & Payments
• 6. Email & SMS Platforms
• 7. CRM & Guest Data
• 8. Review & Reputation Management

SECTION 3: MARKETING & GROWTH

• 9. Website & CMS Platforms
• 10. Social Media Management Tools
• 11. Paid Media Platforms & Reporting
• 12. Analytics & Attribution

SECTION 4: INTEGRATIONS

• 13. The Integrations That Matter Most
• 14. Building a Single Source of Guest Truth
• 15. Zapier, Make & No-Code Glue
• 16. When to Build Custom (And When Not To)

SECTION 5: STACK BLUEPRINTS BY BUDGET

• 17. The £0 Stack (Bootstrapped)
• 18. The £200/Month Stack
• 19. The £1,000/Month Stack
• 20. The £5,000+ Stack (Multi-Site)

SECTION 6: EVALUATING & MIGRATING

• 21. The Tool Evaluation Framework
• 22. Avoiding the Demo Trap
• 23. The Migration Playbook
• 24. Negotiating With Vendors

SECTION 7: AI & EMERGING TOOLS

• 25. AI Tools That Actually Help Hospitality Marketers
• 26. AI Tools to Be Sceptical Of
• 27. Future-Proofing Your Stack

APPENDICES

• Appendix A: Vendor Evaluation Scorecard
• Appendix B: Stack Audit Checklist
• Appendix C: Recommended Tools by Category
• Appendix D: Migration Project Plan Template

FORMAT: Instant digital download. PDF guide plus editable scorecards and audit templates.