What Is Direct Booking?
A direct booking is a reservation a guest makes with the hotel or rental property itself, through its own website, by phone, by email or at the front desk. No online travel agency (OTA) sits between guest and property, so the property pays no OTA commission on the stay.
Last updated: October 2026
How direct booking works
The guest finds the property, checks dates and books with the property. Online, that happens through a booking engine on the property's own website, which shows live rooms, rates and availability and takes payment. Offline, it happens by phone, email or in person at reception. HOTREC, the European hotel association, counts all of these as direct bookings: websites, email, phone and walk-ins (Travel Tomorrow).
The other route is an indirect booking. The guest books on an OTA such as Booking.com, Expedia, Airbnb or Vrbo, and the OTA passes the reservation to the property. The property then pays the channel for it. Booking.com charges "a set percentage of the total booking amount" for each reservation, and the rate depends on the property's country, property type and accommodation agreement. Marketing programmes such as Preferred Partner or Visibility Booster add to it (Booking.com Partner Hub). Airbnb's single fee takes 15.5% from the host payout for most hosts, and that fee structure is mandatory for hotels, serviced apartments and hosts who use property management software (Airbnb Help Center).
A direct booking keeps the room rate with the property without paying OTA commission. It also keeps the guest relationship: the property holds the contact details and talks to the guest before, during and after the stay.
Why it matters for hotel distribution
Direct booking is still the largest single source of hotel reservations in Europe. In the HOTREC European Hotel Distribution Study 2026, which covers 2,713 hotels in 28 countries for the year 2025, direct bookings made up 51.3% of bookings and OTAs 29.9% (WKO). Austria ran higher, at 59.9% direct and 25.9% OTA (WKO).
The direct share has been slipping. HOTREC's 2016 study put it at 55% for 2015 (Business Travel News Europe). Since 2013, the OTA share has risen from 19.7% to 29.9% and direct bookings have fallen about 6 percentage points (Travel Tomorrow). The OTA side is concentrated too: Booking Holdings and Expedia Group together held 85.4% of European OTA bookings (WKO). Half the hotels surveyed (51%) say OTAs undercut their prices frequently or occasionally (Travel Tomorrow).
Readings of the same study differ. A Booking.com author writing on Hospitality Net reports over 56% of 2025 bookings as direct (36.4% direct online and 20% direct offline) and 27.8% through online travel platforms. The published summaries do not explain the gap between the two figures (Hospitality Net).
Short-term rentals face the same trade-off. hostAI, a company that sells direct-booking tools, analysed 231,150 bookings from 2025 across 115 rental operators. It found about 77% of repeat-guest revenue still ran through OTAs at 12% to 20% commission, and that guests who booked direct came back at 28.3%, against 8.9% for Airbnb bookers (TravelDailyNews).
Most properties need both. OTAs bring reach, and direct bookings bring margin and the guest relationship. The aim is a healthy mix.
Direct booking compared with other channels
| Direct booking | OTA booking | GDS booking | Metasearch | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Where the guest books | The property's website, phone, email or front desk | Booking.com, Expedia, Airbnb, Vrbo | A travel agent or corporate travel tool | Clicks through from Google Hotels, Trivago or Kayak to a booking site |
| Who takes the reservation | The property | The OTA, which passes it on | The agent, through the GDS | The site the guest clicks through to |
| Third-party commission | No OTA commission; booking-engine, payment and any metasearch ad costs still apply | A percentage of each booking | Fees to the GDS and travel agent (see GDS) | Advertising fees paid by whoever advertises the rate |
A direct booking engine and a channel manager are often confused. They do different jobs.
| Direct booking engine | Channel manager | |
|---|---|---|
| What it does | Takes reservations on the property's own website | Keeps rooms, rates and availability in sync across OTAs and other channels |
| Is it a sales channel? | Yes, the direct channel | No, it connects the channels |
| Main risk if missing | No way to book online direct | Overbooking and wrong rates on OTAs |
Frequently asked questions
Why do hotels prefer direct booking?
Is Expedia cheaper than booking direct?
Is Airbnb an OTA?
Is Booking.com cheaper than booking direct?
How to create a direct booking website?
Is Booking.com an OTA?
Related terms
See all termsWhere Jetstream fits
A property that sells direct and through OTAs needs the same rooms, rates and availability everywhere, or it risks a double booking or a wrong rate. Jetstream builds an AI channel manager that connects a property's reservation system (PMS or CRS) to the OTAs where guests book and keeps rooms, rates and availability accurate on each one, managed from one place.