The tools and setup process for tracking traffic to your website and booking engine
Hi there. We're ONDA, the hospitality B2B platform driving digital transformation across Korea's accommodation industry.
Today we're sharing a tool that shows you how guests reach your website and booking engine — and how to actually use it.
If you've ever wondered about any of these questions, we recommend reading this guide carefully and following along step by step:
How many people visit our website each week?
What time of day do most bookings happen?
How did guests who made a booking find our website?
What's the age and gender breakdown of our visitors?
Which pages on our site do people spend the most time on?
To answer questions like these, you need a tool called Google Analytics. Google Analytics, or GA for short.
As every service goes digital and data becomes mission-critical, GA's importance keeps growing. You've probably heard of it — or maybe you're already using it.
So what exactly is Google Analytics?
Google Analytics is a service from Google that helps you analyze web logs. It's software that tracks how users behave on your website and delivers that data in report format.
Simply put: it's a service that shows you where visitors come from, what they do on your site, and which page they leave from.
It can help answer all the questions we posed at the start. Now, GA is a tracking tool — so there can be a 5–10% margin between actual data and what it reports. But for seeing the overall picture, it works perfectly.
But why do you need Google Analytics?
Why do hotels run websites in the first place? Obviously: to drive more bookings. To get visitors from your homepage to the booking page to the booking confirmation page.
Google Analytics calls this a "conversion." For example, if 100 people visit your site and 10 reach the booking confirmation page, your conversion rate is 10%.
We need to increase that conversion rate — and to do that effectively, we need Google Analytics.
1) See where visitors come from
Traffic to your site comes from many sources. Even more so if you're running ads across multiple channels. GA shows you which source each visitor came from.
But why does knowing the source matter?
Let's say visitors from Naver convert at 2%, while Facebook traffic converts at 5%. That insight alone tells you: increase the Facebook ad budget.
In other words, tracking traffic sources helps you make smarter decisions about which channels to invest in and how much to spend.
2) See visitor age and gender
Sometimes your assumptions about your target audience are just… wrong. Or they shift over time. Hotels are a perfect example. Not long ago, hotels were seen as places for affluent middle-aged travelers.
But now we have "hotelcations" — and visitor age skews much younger. Different accommodation types attract totally different demographics depending on concept and vibe.
So what can you do if you know visitor age?
Say your visitors skew young. That insight might lead you to lean into photo-worthy spaces in your marketing.
Knowing visitor age and gender lets you tailor your messaging and positioning to your actual audience — not who you think they are.
3) See what visitors do
Every visitor behaves differently. Some browse your room detail pages carefully. Others click event banners and linger on promo pages. If you know which pages people visit before booking, you can optimize those pages to be even more compelling.
On the flip side: if someone views room photos and then leaves without booking, maybe those photos need to be more enticing.
Tracking visitor behavior lets you improve your site to get more people to the booking confirmation page.
We've broken this into three reasons, but honestly, the reason to use GA is simple: increase conversion rate (i.e., bookings).
If you're sold on why GA matters, let's set it up. It looks complicated at first — lots of steps, lots of code — but if you follow along one step at a time, you'll be done before you know it.
Ready? Let's set up Google Analytics.
Create a Google Analytics account
Google Analytics is a Google service, so you need a Google account. Sign up and log in first, then proceed to the next step.
Once you're logged in, head to the Google Analytics homepage. You'll see a screen like this. Click the blue button that says "Start measuring."
After clicking "Start measuring," you'll begin setup. Think of it like creating a Naver account — you're creating a Google Analytics account. Enter a recognizable name (your hotel, pension, or branch name), then click "Next."
For property details, enter a recognizable name for the page you're setting up GA on (your website, landing page, etc.), then change the time zone and currency to South Korea standards. Then click "Show advanced options."
You'll see advanced options expand. Toggle on "Create a Universal Analytics property," then enter your website URL — the site you want GA to track. Then select "Create a Universal Analytics property only." "Google Analytics 4 property" is Google's newest measurement model, but Universal Analytics alone is more than enough to track your data.
Finally, fill in your business information. Select your industry category, business size, and how you plan to use GA. Then click "Create" at the bottom.
If you've followed all these steps, your Google Analytics account is now created!
Install the Google Analytics tag
After creating your account, you'll see a screen like this. It's full of unfamiliar code and might make your head spin. But don't worry — the next step is straightforward.
First, let's understand what the Tracking ID is.
You'll see a Tracking ID in the format "UA-numbers." This unique ID — never duplicated across any other site — distinguishes your website from everyone else's.
What is the Global Site Tag?
Just creating a GA account doesn't automatically let Google read your website data. You need to install the Global Site Tag on your site to connect it to your GA account and start collecting data. So this is the most important part.
As noted at the top, you need to paste the site tag into the <HEAD> section of your website as the first item.
If someone else develops or manages your website, send them this code and say:
"Please insert this code into the head section of the site."
If you manage the code yourself, insert this code between <head></head> tags, as high up as possible. Not too hard, right?
Verify the Google Analytics tag installation
After you've inserted the Global Site Tag, you need to verify it's working. After installing the tag, visit your website.
Then go to Google Analytics and click "Home" on the left sidebar. You'll see a screen like this. If you see a number under "Active users right now," you're good to go! It means GA is tracking people viewing your site in real time.
If you've made it this far, basic setup is complete! Not too difficult when you take it step by step, right? Now if you can read the reports, you'll know your weekly visitor count, bounce rate, and more.
But to see how many "conversions" you're getting — the most important metric — you need one more step.
Set up goals
Click the gear icon (settings) on the left sidebar of the GA home screen. You'll see a screen like this, divided into Account, Property, and View sections. To set site goals and track conversion rate, you'll configure them in the Goals tab.
Go to Settings (gear icon) > View > Goals tab and you'll see this screen. Essentially you're telling GA: "This is our site's goal, and we want to know how many people achieve it."
You can set up to 20 goals per GA account, so prioritize carefully.
Goal setup has three stages: 1) Goal setup 2) Goal description 3) Goal details. All three must be configured for the goal to work properly.
The most important goal for a hotel website is "booking," so let's set that up as an example.
Now click the "+NEW GOAL" red button.
Stage 1 — Goal setup
This is the first screen you'll see when setting up a goal. Here you select what type of goal you're tracking.
Our goal is [Template - Make a purchase], so select that option. If your desired goal isn't in the templates, choose "Custom."
Stage 2 — Goal description
Give your goal a recognizable name. "Goal slot ID" will be auto-assigned. If this is your first goal, it'll be [Goal ID 1]. Next, select the type. You'll see four options: Destination, Duration, Pages/Screens per session, and Event. Let's go through each:
• Destination: When visitors land on a specific page after completing a goal. For example: after completing an order, registration, booking, or consultation request, they reach a "Thank you" page.
• Duration: When reaching the goal requires a certain amount of time on the site.
• Pages/Screens per session: When reaching the goal requires viewing a certain number of pages.
• Event: For cases that don't fit the first three types. For example, tracking downloads of resources or video plays.
Since our goal is "booking," we'll select "Destination."
Stage 3 — Goal details
The destination asks: what's the final page that indicates goal completion? After booking, visitors should reach a "Thank you for your booking" page — that's your goal completion. So enter the URL of that booking confirmation page here.
Funnel setup is optional, but it helps with more accurate tracking.
Visitors on your site will go through the booking form before reaching the confirmation page, right? So set the booking form page as Step 1 in the funnel. Enter the booking form URL and mark it as "Required."
Now GA will count as goal completions only those visitors who went through the booking form and reached the confirmation page.
Click "Save" after following these steps, and your goal is set up!
It seemed like a lot when you started, but you made it through quickly, right? With just the setup we've covered today, you'll have access to tons of data. Now you can make better decisions based on data, not gut feeling. To get the most out of all this hard work, you also need to know how to read the data you want.
In our next piece, we'll show you how to read Google Analytics reports. Until the day you boost your booking rate with GA, ONDA will be with you every step of the way.
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