Short-term rental property managers know that top online travel agencies (OTAs), such as Airbnb, VRBO, and Booking.com can bring in millions of views and a large number of bookings for their vacation rental properties. Third-party booking sites are a great place to advertise your short-term rentals, but they shouldn't be your only channel. Savvy property managers know that OTAs play only one part in their distribution strategy, and they rely on a direct booking website to take their business to the next level of 100 listings or more.
For the most successful vacation rental companies, a direct booking website helped catapult them to the top. Direct bookings make up about 30 to 40% of their reservations, and they don’t come with the same strings attached as bookings through an OTA. Not only are they more profitable, but direct bookings can also be made on their own terms.
Perfecting and optimizing your distribution strategy can dramatically increase the success of your business, so it’s important to find the right balance when it comes to listing on OTAs and standing up a killer direct booking website. If you’re solely listing your properties on OTAs, you can potentially stunt the growth of your business.
Are you looking for more information about how to improve revenue & take back control with your own direct booking website? Download our free Guide to Building a Successful Direct Booking Website
- Top Online Travel Agencies Dictate Terms
If you’re a property manager who only lists on an OTA, it can often feel like many things are out of your control: the terms of your rental contracts, property advertisements, and guest relations — they are all dictated by the OTAs guests book through. Despite being a two-sided marketplace, OTA’s are increasingly incentivized to side with guests during any dispute, leaving you with limited support and few options.
Instead of being subject to an OTA’s ever-changing policies and contracts, take back control by booking guests directly. You can set up your own cancellation policies, own your rental contracts, and improve relationships with your guests.
- Fewer Fees and More Revenue with Direct Booking
Online travel agency fees can really take a bite out of your earnings. As a host, you may only being paying 3% on an OTA reservation, but the guest is paying an average 14% higher for that booking. This means the overall reservation is unnecessarily 17% higher than the same reservation on a direct booking engine website. It's a lose-lose as the guest is paying more for their stay and you are taking home less revenue. It’s important to diversify your distribution strategy with a direct booking website so that you are keeping more of your revenue rather than paying tens of thousands of dollars in unnecessary fees to OTAs.
Businesses just getting started with direct bookings stand to recapture 15-25% of every dollar spent on an OTA reservation. That’s an opportunity to reinvest each of those dollars back into your business and to begin to establish your own brand and reputation.
- OTAs Provide Less Access to Essential Data
OTAs do not offer a huge amount of quality, actionable data for property managers to use. This prevents managers from optimizing their pricing strategies based on website data (like search lead time) and from building a rich CRM with guest information (like contact information).
When managers get direct bookings, they can capture that valuable website data and guest information that can help with guest relations and marketing strategies.
- Your Brand is Hidden on OTAs
Building your brand and earning trust from your community is important to your business. If you only list your properties on OTAs, your brand can go largely unnoticed. OTAs promote their own branding and don’t offer the same opportunities for your business. With a direct booking website, your brand is front and center throughout the entire booking process. It creates a memorable experience for your guests.
- Less Options to Protect Against Negative or False Reviews
Your business relies on reviews; a few sentences from a guest can make or break a listing. OTAs have their own policies when it comes to reviews, and, again, cater to guests rather than property managers and hosts, meaning that removing unfavorable or false reviews are almost impossible. Should a listing receive bad reviews or an inaccurate one, your options are few and far between in how to respond.
Instead, protect your listings on a booking engine that you own. You’ll have the ability to put your best reviews front and center and can even filter out inaccurate or misleading reviews.
- Limited Opportunities for Repeat Bookings and Referrals
OTAs absolutely have a place in your distribution strategy; they bring in millions of people looking to book accommodations every day and can drive lots of traffic to your listings. However,
You lose the ability to attract repeat guests, who play an important part in any short-term rental agency’s business. They’re dependable, they maintain occupancy, and they can even generate those referrals.
Perfecting your distribution strategy is important to the health and growth of your business. It’s important to diversify your distribution strategy with a direct booking website so that you are keeping more of your revenue, retaining control over your business, and creating a better guest experience.
Ready to learn more about how a direct booking website can dramatically grow your business? Get in touch with us.
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