Direct bookings: how a small hotel gets more

GuestJourney editorial team, edited by Alon Shkuri

Published 1 November 2026 · Updated 2 November 2026 · 11 min read

Wes, a toy figure, carries a large brass key across the reception desk

A small hotel gets more direct bookings by making the direct route the easiest route in the few places guests already look, not by leaving the OTAs. Across Europe 51.3% of hotel bookings are direct. Small hotels have more of both: in the 2024 study, hotels under 20 rooms were 59.5% direct against 54.9% for all hotels, yet 54% of them got at least 30% of their business through OTAs.

20:14LauraOn the sofa, phone in hand. She slept at Kadeloft in the spring and wants to come back, so she types "Hotel Kadeloft" into Google.
20:15GoogleShows the hotel's photos and reviews, with prices from booking sites beside them. Kadeloft's own link is not in that list.
20:16LauraTaps Booking.com. Her details are already there, and two nights take her four taps.
09:05AnnaSees the booking next morning. Two nights at €110, 15% commission: €16.50 a night, for a guest who typed her hotel's name.

Laura's route back to Hotel Kadeloft. Hotel, people and times are made up.

Hotel Kadeloft, Anna and Laura are made up, so the sums here are about something.

Nobody made a mistake on that route. Laura wanted Kadeloft, and Google, the app and the hotel each did their job. Anna still pays €33 for a guest she already had.

The job is to make that route shorter in six places, while you keep the OTAs for guests like Jonas, who found Kadeloft on Booking.com and had never heard of it.

What the European numbers say

51.3%of European hotel bookings are direct

29.9%go through OTAs, up from 19.7% in 2013

66.1%of OTA bookings go to Booking.com

54%of hotels under 20 rooms get at least 30% through OTAs

HOTREC studies. The first three are from 2026, which we read through a press report, not the study itself. The 54% is from the 2024 study's own summary: 27% with 30-49% through OTAs and another 27% with more than half.

There is no good number that fits every hotel. These are averages over hotels of every size, in a survey run by the hotels' own European association. Use your own booking report as the baseline: it is the only number that decides whether anything you change is working.

It gets more useful when you look inside the word direct. The 2024 study splits it up, for the year 2023:

What direct is made of: share of overnight stays in Europe, 2023, hotels of every size, without aggregated chain data
Channel	Share
Phone	15.4%
Email	13.2%
Real-time booking on the hotel's own site	12.3%, up from 7.4% in 2013
Contact form on the hotel's own site	4.9%
Walk-in	3.7%
Mail or fax	1.4%
All direct	50.9%

Phone and email each brought in more nights than the booking engine. So your inbox and your desk phone are direct channels too, and that is why a question answered quickly is on the list below.

Keep your OTAs while you do this

New to the term? Read what an OTA is. We would not make leaving Booking.com the first step for a hotel with twenty rooms and one owner. Guests like Jonas find you there who would not have found you on Google, and that visibility is what you pay for. Two people on The Future of Hospitality set the limits on that:

“Having those OTAs is actually a free advertising. Yes, you're paying a commission.”

Khalifa Saqer, CEO of HostelHop. Travel Commerce Unfiltered, November 2025

“I truly would not advise anyone, joining these kinds of promotions because you create a very weird marketplace yourself with the parity issues.”

Rogier Ensel, owner of RevGen, on Genius and mobile discounts. The Revenue Playbook, June 2026

Both from The Future of Hospitality, the podcast GuestJourney sponsors.

Saqer's point is the sequence: fill the rooms you cannot fill yourself, and turn guests into direct guests over time. He runs a hostel booking platform with a booking fee of its own, and we think the sequence holds for twenty rooms too. The commission is the price of that. Our own view is that it stops being a fair price when a guest who already knows your name still books through the OTA, because nothing on your side made direct easier. That is the part you can fix. Ensel's warning comes back further down.

Six places to fix, in this order

The order is ours, not a study's. It follows the route: each place sends guests to the next, so the place they all land on comes first.

1. Your website's first screen

Open your homepage on your phone, on mobile data. Is there a Book button with a word on it, with nothing lying on top? Of the 20 hotel sites we checked, 14 had that. On the other 6 a banner lay on the button, there was only a calendar icon, or the button sat further down. Fix that first, and read what a hotel website needs.

2. Google's price list

Ask your booking engine supplier one question this week: do you send my rates to Google for free booking links? Google says a hotel with a reservation system may already be connected through its provider, that partners pay no fee for these links, and that nobody can pay for a higher place. Then search for your own name, pick dates and look for your link. In the 2024 HOTREC study, 40% of independent hotels had a permanent connection to price comparison engines such as Google Hotel Ads, against 68% of chain hotels. Read free booking links and Google Hotel Ads.

3. Your Google profile

Set your own site as the link, and put one update with a Book button on your profile this week. Google says updates on a profile help people decide to visit, and the button can lead to your booking page. Hotels may post news but no offers. Read what a hotel can post.

4. Your review replies

Answer this week's reviews, starting with the lowest. A guest comparing you with the hotel down the street can read every reply, and Google says helpful replies can help a business stand out. Tom left Kadeloft two stars about a Saturday check-in, and Anna's reply is what the next guest sees under it. Read how to respond to hotel reviews.

5. Questions when the desk is closed

Write down the questions you answered most this month, and put the answers on your site in plain words. At Kadeloft that is dogs €15 a night, not in the breakfast room, and two charging points on the quay. A guest with no answer can go back to the OTA, where the facts are on the page. Read what a website chat should answer.

6. Your price

Decide on purpose whether your own site is cheaper, the same, or the same with something extra. Run your own numbers in the commission calculator before you pick a discount. In the EU the choice is now yours, as the next section shows.

One thing on this route needs no website at all. When Laura hands back her key, Anna can tell her: next time, book on our site or just call. It costs one sentence, and phone counts as direct.

Gigi pushes a big purple pin into a large paper map on a dark desk

May you be cheaper on your own website?

In the EU, yes. Since Booking.com became a gatekeeper under the Digital Markets Act it "cannot prevent accommodation providers from offering the same services through other channels at different prices", in the words of the European Commission's factsheet. According to the Commission, the contractual parity clauses went in July 2024. Since September 2026 Booking.com also says it no longer looks at prices outside its platform when deciding on its Booking Sponsored Benefit, and that outside prices play no part in default ranking or in eligibility for Genius and Preferred. The "competitive" and "non-competitive" labels are gone from the Extranet too.

That benefit has a side you should know. Under it, Booking.com lowers the price the guest sees and pays the difference itself, while you still receive the rate you set. So the price on Booking.com can be lower than your rate without you doing anything. Compare what guests actually see.

That factsheet covers the EEA and Booking.com. Read your agreements with other OTAs yourself, and a hotel in the UK should read its own agreement instead of assuming the same applies.

What Booking.com cannot stop in the EEA

A lower price on your own site
Different availability or rooms there
Different conditions, such as breakfast or later check-out
A lower price on another OTA

What we would check first

Your own rate on the big sites, on a phone, for real dates
Which programmes and discounts you switched on yourself
What is left after card fees and your booking engine
Whether you can keep the rate up to date everywhere

On that last line: in the 2024 study, 43% of hotels under 20 rooms still managed their channels by hand, and 53% used a channel manager. If you are in the first group, count the hours before you start changing rates by channel.

Some hotels say it on the button. Of the 20 sites we checked, one button read Book Direct & Save 10%, and another just Book Direct. If you do this, say it on your own site and at the desk, since it cannot go in a hotel's Google post.

One warning before you start discounting anywhere. A rate you sell cheaply on one platform can travel. Ensel's example: you sell on Agoda at 10% off, Agoda resells to a partner, that partner resells to Booking.com, and you suddenly see a partner offer for your own hotel, €20 lower.

The HOTREC study of 2024 has names for this. Undercutting is an OTA cutting your price by waiving part of its own commission: it affects four out of ten hotels, and three out of four of those never agreed to it. Multi-sourcing is an OTA offering rates from other OTAs or wholesalers: it affects 44% of hotels, 29% of those under 20 rooms, and one in four are unaware of the problem. In the 2026 report, 51% of hoteliers say OTAs undercut their rates without prior agreement. So check your own rate on the big sites before you decide what your direct price is.

Where social fits

Serge Berezhnoy, founder of InsightArc, makes a case for one channel where in his view OTAs cannot outbid you. In a GoDirect episode of The Future of Hospitality, the podcast GuestJourney sponsors, he said: "social media, this is a unique channel for hotel because OTAs can't compete with you because it's a very personalized channel." We would still do the six above first. They are what a guest from social lands on.

How you will know it is working

Once a month, one line. Nights by channel from your booking report, and your direct share next to last year's month.
Your free booking links. With a Hotel Center account you can see their performance under Reports. Without one, ask your supplier.
A tally at the desk. Ask how guests found you, as in the commission guide. It shows how many Lauras you are paying for.

How fast your share will move, we do not know, and we have found no study that says. Give it a season before you judge.

What it is worth for Kadeloft

Take Kadeloft, an example and not a measured average: 20 rooms, €110 a night, 60% occupancy, 40% of revenue through Booking.com at 15%. That is 4,380 room nights, €481,800 of revenue, €192,720 through Booking.com and €28,908 of commission a year.

Now move 5 percentage points of revenue to direct. That is €24,090, or 219 room nights, a little over four a week. On each of those nights Anna stops paying €16.50 and pays an assumed 3% for card fees and her booking engine, which is €3.30. She keeps €13.20 a night, about €2,891 a year. Put in your own numbers with the commission calculator, and read what hotels really pay for what the percentage covers.

Be careful with that sum. It assumes the guest would have come anyway. Some of the guests you win back found you on the OTA first, which is exactly Saqer's point. Four nights a week is worth having at a hotel of twenty rooms, and seven eighths of the Booking.com invoice stays.

€2,891kept, from 219 nights moved€28,908commission a year