We helped Pāʻina Waikiki break into one of Hawaii’s most competitive search categories—ranking in the top 3 for “Waikiki Luau” and doubling organic traffic in under a year.
Overview
Industry: Hospitality & Entertainment | Client: Marriott Waikiki
Focus: Organic Growth for Lūʻau Bookings in a Competitive Market
Pāʻina Waikiki is an authentic Hawaiian lūʻau experience held at the iconic Marriott Waikiki Beach Resort. While the hotel itself had strong brand recognition and foot traffic, the newly launched lūʻau offering struggled with online visibility in a crowded and highly competitive space. In a market saturated with long-established luaus across Oʻahu, Pāʻina Waikiki was virtually unknown online—missing out on thousands of high-intent searchers every month.
Problem
Despite having a high-quality, culturally rich experience backed by a major hotel brand, Pāʻina Waikiki faced a major go-to-market challenge:
The lūʻau was not ranking for key local keywords like “Waikiki luau” or “best luau in Honolulu,”
It appeared beyond position #50 in organic results for critical terms
Competing luaus had years of SEO momentum and backlink equity
Paid ads were expensive and oversaturated, making organic visibility even more important
Without a strong SEO foundation, even the best product was invisible to the most relevant audience—tourists actively searching for a lūʻau in Waikiki.
Solution
We deployed a targeted, hospitality-specific SEO strategy to help Pāʻina Waikiki stand out and win in search:
Strategic Keyword Targeting
Focused on high-commercial intent keywords like “Waikiki luau,” “Honolulu luau,” and long-tail variants used by tourists planning their trips
Built supporting content and optimized landing pages to align with searcher intent
On-Site Optimization
Improved title tags, meta descriptions, heading structure, and internal linking
Enhanced page speed and mobile usability to meet Google’s Core Web Vitals
Authority Building Through Backlinks
Acquired strategic backlinks from travel blogs, hospitality directories, and local event sites
Collaborated with local partners to build contextual relevance and trust signals for Google
Performance Tracking & Iteration
Monitored rankings weekly, made technical adjustments, and refined targeting based on user behavior and keyword trends
Results
📈 Ranked Top 3 for “Waikiki Luau” (previously outside top 50)
🌴 This single keyword now drives ~15% of total site traffic
🚀 Organic traffic more than doubled year over year, creating a reliable, low-cost acquisition channel
📥 Increased direct bookings without the need to rely on high-cost OTAs or paid search
💼 Positioned Pāʻina Waikiki as a top local experience in Google’s results, increasing brand visibility, trust, and bookings
Why This Matters
In one of the most competitive tourism categories in Hawaii, we helped a brand-new lūʻau climb to the top of Google by doing what most agencies overlook: aligning SEO strategy with the commercial intent of real travelers. While other SEO agencies push generic tactics, we bring deep industry experience, destination-specific strategies, and conversion-focused execution tailored for hotels and experiences in Waikiki.
Let’s Grow Together
If you’re a hotel or experience provider in Waikiki, there’s no better partner for SEO than our team. We don’t just drive traffic—we connect you to guests already planning their stay, already searching, and ready to book.
