“We’re a team!”…I would say to myself.

Back when I was a young naive property owner and thought OTAs (like Booking.com, Airbnb, and Expedia) were the most brilliant thing since sliced bread.

I thought it was amazing to have a place where hospitality owners and hosts could go where they would get ‘help’, a decent income, and run a successful short-term rental business with nothing but a few property pics and some keyword stuffing!

Too easy! 🙄 So I threw all my eggs into one basket and took off running. It wasn’t long after, that I realized they had complete control over my bookings and my business. During the pandemic, thousands of property owners' businesses were shut down when Airbnb decided they could no longer accept bookings of any kind to their properties.

…even when some countries were still allowing them to run!

But what could they do? The OTAs had 100% control over their bookings, so they were the ones in charge.

The result?

Thousands of hosts and property managers lost their vacation rental businesses entirely. And the worst part? The reality that had they created their own website alongside the OTAs, they could have kept their business running without fear or worry.

THAT is the power of direct bookings.
THAT is why you never build ALL of your business on somebody else's platform.
THAT is the heart and soul of the book direct movement.