Direct bookings
43%
of all bookings came direct, up from 20%, after a prize draw for direct bookers
St Christopher’s Inns, in-house
For most independent hotels, OTA commission is the biggest variable cost in the business. It’s bigger than housekeeping and card fees, and often bigger than the utilities.
In 2026, commission on a hotel booking typically lands between 15% and 25% of the room revenue, with most properties paying somewhere around 15% to 18%. Ten years ago the average was nearer 10%. It only goes one way.
So every booking you move from an OTA to your own website is money straight back in your pocket. The question is how.
Don’t quit the OTAs
First, the honest bit. OTAs still drive around 63% of independent hotel bookings, and they reach guests you’d never find on your own. Walking away from them isn’t the answer.
The smarter way to think about commission is as the cost of finding a new guest. Let the OTAs do the finding. Then win the booking direct wherever you can, especially repeat guests, people searching your name and anyone who clicks through to your website to have a look.
Why “cheaper direct” doesn’t always work
In the UK, many OTA contracts still include rate parity, which stops you showing a lower price on your own site than on the OTA. Even where you can undercut, a price war with a company that size isn’t one an independent wins.
And the free breakfast most hotels reach for isn’t special either. Booking.com’s Genius scheme already gives loyal guests up to 20% off, often with free breakfast or an upgrade stacked on top. The guest can get it on the OTA anyway.
Parity usually covers the price, though, not what comes with it. That’s where the real opportunity is.
From experience
Offer something the OTAs aren’t
When I ran digital at St Christopher’s, anyone who booked direct was entered into a draw to win a luxury all-expenses-paid holiday for two. We promoted it with targeted ads and email campaigns. By the time I left, direct bookings had gone from 20% of the total to 43%.
On the surface a free holiday sounds expensive. It isn’t. Every booking that came direct instead of through an OTA was commission we kept, and next to that commission bill the prize was tiny.
Here’s the maths on a small example. Say your average room is £150 and you pay 18% commission. That’s £27 a booking. Put 1,000 bookings a year through the OTAs and you’re paying £27,000. Move just 10% of those direct and you’ve kept £2,700, which buys a lot of prizes.
What an independent can offer
You don’t need a holiday for two. You need something that feels like a treat, not a line in the small print.
- A bottle of something in the room on arrival. Local if you can.
- Proper chocolate on the pillow. Something from a good local maker, not a foil-wrapped mint.
- Late checkout, guaranteed. Worth more to most guests than anything on a menu.
- An upgrade when one’s free. It costs you nothing if the room would sit empty anyway.
- A prize draw. A free night, a dinner, a spa day. Direct bookers only.
- Something local. A drink at the bar, a discount at the restaurant down the road, a map of your favourite places.
A complimentary bottle, really good chocolate or a chance to win means more to me than a free breakfast. Breakfast feels like admin. The others feel like someone’s pleased you came.
Make sure people actually see it
Plenty of guests find you on an OTA and then look at your website before they book. If your site doesn’t say, clearly and near the booking button, what they get for booking direct, they’ll go back to the tab they came from.
So put the offer on your homepage and your booking page. Mention it in the confirmation email. Tell OTA guests at check-in, so they know what they’ll get next time.
One more reason to go direct
Direct guests are also more likely to turn up. OTA cancellation rates reached 21.8% in 2025, more than double the 10.6% for direct bookings. So you pay commission on OTA bookings that are twice as likely to disappear.
The short version
Keep the OTAs for finding new guests. Win the booking direct with something they can’t offer, not a lower price. Make it feel like a treat, and put it where people will see it.