How much do OTAs charge surf schools?

Airbnb states that it typically charges a 20% service fee on experience bookings. GetYourGuide and Viator negotiate their commission with each supplier and do not publish a single rate; guides from booking software companies put both in the 20% to 30% range. GetYourGuide adds 2 percentage points if you choose bi-weekly payouts.

Should a surf school stop using OTAs?

Not necessarily. OTAs bring travellers who would never have found you, especially first-time visitors to a destination. The goal is to know what share of your revenue depends on them and to make sure repeat customers and people who already know your school can book you directly.

How do I measure my OTA dependency?

For one full season, add up revenue by channel (each OTA, your website, phone and walk-ins), then calculate each channel's share of revenue, the commission paid per channel, and how many OTA customers booked again directly. A single OTA above roughly half of your revenue is a concentration risk worth reducing.

How Dependent Is Your Surf School on OTAs? A Neutral Guide to Measuring It and Growing Direct Bookings

Online travel agencies (OTAs) such as GetYourGuide, Viator and Airbnb Experiences are a real source of customers for surf schools. They are also a cost, and a dependency. This guide does not argue for or against them: it gives you the numbers that are public, a simple way to measure how much your school depends on them, and the steps that tend to move bookings to your own channels.

What OTAs charge

Commission is a percentage of the price the customer pays, deducted before the OTA pays you.

Platform	What it charges	Source
Airbnb Experiences	”For experience reservations, we typically charge a 20% service fee.”	Airbnb Help Center
GetYourGuide	Commission agreed in each supplier’s contract. Booking software guides report a range of 20% to 30%, depending on country, activity and volume. Bi-weekly payouts add “+2% extra commission rate on top of your current contractual commission rate.”	GetYourGuide supplier support, Regiondo
Viator	Does not publish a supplier commission rate; it is set in each contract. Booking software guides report 20% to 30%.	Samba HQ

If you list on any of them, the exact figure is in your own contract or supplier portal. Use that number, not the ranges above, for your calculations.

What they give you in return

It is worth being fair about this. OTAs offer things that are hard to build on your own:

Reach. Travellers searching “surf lesson” plus a destination often start on an OTA, especially on their first visit.
Trust. A new customer may book a school they have never heard of because the platform shows reviews and handles payment.
No marketing effort up front. You pay only when a booking happens.

What you give up, beyond the commission, is the relationship: the customer is the OTA’s customer. Their email may be masked, the review lives on the OTA, and next year they are likely to search the OTA again rather than your name.

How to measure your dependency

Take one full season and build a small table, one row per channel (each OTA, your website, phone, walk-ins, hotels or partners):

Revenue per channel. Add up what customers paid, before commission.
Share of revenue. Each channel’s revenue divided by your total.
Commission paid. Revenue times the rate in your contract, for each OTA.
Repeat customers. Of the people who first came through an OTA, how many booked again, and through which channel.

Three readings come out of that table:

Concentration. If one OTA brings more than about half of your revenue, a change in its ranking, its rate or its rules can hit your season hard.
Cost of a returning customer. If repeat customers keep coming back through the OTA, you are paying commission on people who already know you.
Your direct baseline. The share that already books you directly is the base to grow from.

Steps that move bookings to your own channels

None of these require leaving the OTAs.

Make direct booking easy. A booking link on your own website and on your Google Business Profile, with real availability and online payment. If booking you directly means a phone call or an email exchange, customers will go back to the OTA.
Keep your Google Business Profile complete. Opening hours, photos, the booking link and replies to reviews. Many customers look up the school’s name after finding it elsewhere.
Stay in touch with past customers. An end-of-season email and an early-season one with your schedule. People who already surfed with you are the most likely to book directly.
Give a reason to book direct. For example a small extra (board rental for a longer time, a photo pack) rather than a lower price than the one you show on OTAs, which your OTA contract may not allow. Check its rate parity clauses first.
Get listed where surfers already look. Local tourism offices, your national surfing federation, hotels and hostels near the beach. These bring customers without a per-booking commission and add links to your website.
Measure again next season. Repeat the table above and compare.

Where Maikupo fits

Maikupo is one of the tools you can use for the direct booking page in the first step: a booking page under your own brand with online payment, at 1% per direct booking and no monthly fee. Other booking platforms do the same job with different pricing models, and the steps above work with any of them.