Look-to-Book Ratio
Look-to-Book Ratio is the ratio of search or browse sessions to actual bookings on a website, OTA listing, or booking engine. It is the inverse of conversion rate and measures how many "lookers" are needed to produce one booker.
Formula
Look-to-Book Ratio = Number of Searches / Number of Bookings
A look-to-book ratio of 100:1 means 100 search sessions are needed to generate one booking.
Why it matters
For OTAs, look-to-book is a foundational health metric — both for individual hotel listings and for the platform overall:
- High look-to-book → either pricing is uncompetitive, content is weak, or demand is mismatched. Listings with high look-to-book may be deprioritized in search ranking.
- Low look-to-book → the listing converts well; the OTA's algorithm typically rewards it with better placement.
For hotels, monitoring look-to-book on the brand website helps diagnose:
- Content/imagery issues — images, descriptions, room information that fail to close the sale
- Rate competitiveness — guests bouncing because OTAs have a better price
- Booking flow friction — too many steps, slow load times, payment issues
Related metrics
- Conversion rate — bookings ÷ sessions (the inverse view)
- Abandonment rate — sessions that reach the booking flow but don't complete
- Click-through rate (CTR) — clicks on a listing ÷ impressions