Direct bookings vs OTAs
Stop paying 20–30% commission to OTAs
GetYourGuide, Airbnb Experiences and Viator take a third of your revenue and keep your customer data. Maikupo gives you a branded direct booking page at a fraction of the cost.
Direct bookings vs OTAs, in short: a direct booking is one a customer makes on your own branded page instead of through an OTA like GetYourGuide, Viator or Airbnb Experiences. You keep the customer's email and data and pay a small commission — Maikupo charges 1% on direct bookings and 3.5% on public-channel bookings, versus the 20–30% OTAs take on every sale.
The real cost on €1,000 in bookings
Same revenue. Very different outcome.
Via OTA
–€300
Up to 30% gone before you see it
Via Maikupo direct
–€10
1% commission on direct bookings
That's up to €290 more in your pocket per €1,000 earned.
OTA vs Maikupo — feature by feature
| OTA (GetYourGuide, Airbnb…) | Maikupo | |
|---|---|---|
| Commission per booking | 20–30% | 1–3.5% |
| Your brand on the booking page | No | Yes |
| Customer email & data | Hidden | Always yours |
| Monthly subscription fee | Often yes | None |
| Competitor listings on your page | Yes | Never |
| Control over cancellation policy | Limited | Full control |
| Direct communication with guests | Blocked | Open |
| Repeat booking incentives | Platform loyalty | Your loyalty |
Why direct bookings win long-term
You own the customer relationship
When guests book direct, you get their email, their preferences and their history. OTAs keep that data locked away. Your own list is your most valuable business asset.
Your brand gets the credit
Guests who book through an OTA remember the platform, not you. Direct bookers remember your name. Every direct booking is brand equity that compounds over time.
Repeat bookings cost you nothing extra
When a past guest books again directly, you pay 1% — not 25%. The longer you run on direct bookings, the bigger the cumulative saving.
Already using FareHarbor? See how Maikupo compares →
When an OTA is still the right choice
A comparison that only argues one side is not much use, so here is the honest version. OTAs do one thing genuinely well: they put you in front of travellers who have never heard of you, in a city they are visiting for four days, at the moment they are deciding what to do tomorrow. No booking page of your own will replace that reach on day one.
Keep the OTA when you are new and have no audience yet, when you are filling last-minute empty spots you would otherwise lose, or when you are entering a market where nobody knows your name. In those cases the 20–30% is a customer-acquisition cost, and a fair one.
Move to direct when the booking is a repeat customer, a word-of-mouth referral, someone who found you on Instagram, or a group that called you first and then booked through the platform because that was the link they had. You are paying a discovery fee on customers you already discovered. That is the money worth recovering — and on a €10,000 season it is €2,000–3,000.
The practical setup is both at once: the OTA listing stays live for discovery, and every other channel you control — your Google Business Profile, social bios and post-activity emails — points at your own booking page. Over time the direct share grows and the commission bill shrinks, without ever switching off the channel that brings you strangers.
Frequently asked questions
How hard is it to migrate away from GetYourGuide or Airbnb Experiences?
You don't need to delete your OTA listings immediately. The smart move is to run both in parallel while you build your direct booking presence, then gradually shift the balance. Maikupo sets up in minutes.
Will my direct booking page rank on Google?
Yes. Every Maikupo booking page is SEO-ready with structured data, canonical URLs and clean HTML. Public activity pages are indexed by Google and can appear in search results.
What is the actual commission difference per €1,000 in bookings?
On €1,000 in bookings: OTAs charge €200–€300. Maikupo charges €10–€35 on direct bookings. That's €165–€290 extra in your pocket per thousand euros earned.
Does Maikupo compete with my business on the same platform?
Never. Maikupo gives each provider their own independent branded space. Your activities are not listed next to competitors — you own your page completely.
Should I leave OTAs completely?
Usually no. OTAs are genuinely good at one thing: putting you in front of travellers who have never heard of you. What costs you money is paying 20–30% on repeat customers and word-of-mouth referrals who would have booked with you anyway. The strategy that works is to keep the OTA listing for first-time discovery and move everyone else to your own booking page.
How do I get my existing customers to book direct?
Put the direct link everywhere the OTA is not: your Google Business Profile, your social bios, the confirmation email you send after a lesson, and a card handed over in person. Repeat customers are the easiest to move because they already know you — they were only using the OTA because it was the link they had.
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