Case study · Málaga Football Tours, Spain
How a Málaga tour operator stopped paying marketplace commission on every booking
Málaga Football Tours runs hosted Málaga CF matchday experiences at La Rosaleda: tapas, a match ticket, a scarf and local hosts. They used to depend on third-party booking platforms that took a share of every sale. ShiftedLabs built them a four-language website with direct Stripe booking and a content plan aimed at the questions visitors ask Google and ChatGPT. Starting from a single Google Sites page, the site now earns visitors from search and AI assistants every week and takes bookings direct.
- Client
- Málaga Football Tours, Spain
- Sector
- Tourism and experiences
- What we built
- Website in English, Spanish, German and Dutch; Stripe booking; fixture pages; ticket guides; seat-availability watcher; weekly growth reporting
- Live at
- malagafootballtours.com
By the numbers
- Google search impressions (up 229%)
- 37,410 Google search impressions (up 229%)
- Visits from Google (up 45%)
- 460 Visits from Google (up 45%)
- Visits from ChatGPT
- 31 Visits from ChatGPT
- Direct bookings, worth €6,950
- 7 Direct bookings, worth €6,950
- Languages
- 4 Languages
Figures cover the 28 days to 26 September 2026. Purchase tracking went live in early September 2026, so booking totals represent tracked direct purchases in that window rather than all bookings since launch.
The problem
The business had a great product and five-star reviews, but almost no web presence of its own: one Google Sites page. Bookings came through marketplaces, which set the price display, owned the customer relationship and kept a share of each booking.
Visitors also struggle with one thing above all: getting Málaga CF tickets, especially seats together. Nobody was answering that question well.
What we built
A booking site in four languages
English, Spanish, German and Dutch, matching where visitors come from. Guests pick a match, choose numbers and pay by card through Stripe, with WhatsApp for anyone who’d rather talk first.
A page for every home game
Each fixture has its own page in every language, with kick-off time, ticket status and availability. When a match is over, the page points visitors to the next three home games instead of a dead end.
Content that answers the real question
Honest guides on how to get Málaga CF tickets, when they go on sale, whether they’re hard to get, where to sit at La Rosaleda, and bringing children. The rule is strict: never hide that buying direct from the club is cheaper, never call a match sold out when tickets just aren’t on sale yet, never imply a link to the club. That honesty is what makes Google and ChatGPT trust and cite the pages.
A seat watcher
A small service checks the club’s ticketing for blocks of seats together and alerts the team, so they can promise groups what’s actually available.
Extras that keep people on the site
A chatbot that answers common questions, and three Málaga CF trivia games built on a 218-player dataset.
Growth reporting
An automated weekly report combines Google Analytics and Search Console, flags opportunities, and logs every change as an experiment with a review date. Changes happen only with evidence.
Why this matters beyond tourism
The same pattern applies to any business paying a marketplace, agent or platform for customers it could reach directly: own the destination, answer the question the customer is actually asking, and make the transaction complete on your own site.
Tech
- Astro
- Tailwind
- Netlify Functions
- Stripe Checkout
- GA4 and Search Console APIs
Related services
- Customer portals and booking platforms Businesses where customers must call or email to book, check, change or retrieve something that software could handle — and businesses paying marketplaces or agents for customers they could reach directly.
- New product development Founders and established companies taking a new digital product to market, who need a team that has shipped and operated products rather than only built them.
Recognise your own business in this?
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