direct-bookings
Cloudbeds API: how to build a direct booking checkout
Cloudbeds will write a real booking into the property system from your own page, and it will not take a cent of the money. There is no hold on the room either, so a refused card leaves a booking your own code has to cancel. What that build involves, and what the platform costs.
Hostaway API: what it takes to build a direct booking checkout
Hostaway's public API lives in a single reference, the key is yours to create, and the request that makes a reservation can charge the card at the same time. If that charge fails, Hostaway deletes the reservation. Nothing it publishes holds the dates while a guest is paying.
Guesty API documentation, and what a direct booking page costs to build
Guesty has two APIs, and the narrow one is built for a direct booking site: your checkout requests a reservation quote, Guesty guarantees that price for 24 hours, and the quote becomes a booking. Nothing it publishes says the dates are held while the guest pays.
Bed and breakfast direct booking: how a small B&B gets more of them
Direct bookings at a bed and breakfast come from people who already have your name. What it takes to catch them: a booking page that holds the date and takes a card, a clear read of what your Booking.com contract lets you charge, a deposit guests will finish, and somebody asking at checkout.
Hotel rate parity: what your contract covers and what you can still do
Rate parity promises a booking platform the same or better price, conditions and availability than you make available anywhere else. Booking.com runs three versions of it, and the United States and Canada get the widest one by default. Here is what the clause reaches, what it can be used for, and the narrow routes that stay open.
Hotel post stay email templates for direct and platform guests
Your post stay email should ask for one thing, and which one depends on where the reservation came from. Booking.com is already collecting the review, so a platform guest gets the invitation back. A guest who came direct gets the review request. Both emails are written out, with where the address comes from.
Price disparity: what it means and why platforms undercut your own site
Price disparity means one stay carrying two different prices in two places. At a small property it usually runs the wrong way, with your own website asking more than your platform listing, and four settings cause most of it: a platform discount you fund, a child billed as an extra guest, a lodging tax counted twice, and two totals that were never comparable.
Direct booking discount: how deep you can safely go
A direct booking discount stops paying for itself at about 12 to 13% off list once card fees are counted, or at about 30% if you also fund a platform loyalty discount. The three cases worked on one real stay, where the discount has to live so the platforms never read it, and why a US or Canadian property has to check its Booking.com parity clause before publishing one.
The best direct booking website builders for a small lodging operator
Houfy at $7.99 a listing, Guesty at $9 plus 1%, Lodgify from $14, OwnerRez at $40 for the first property, Hostaway's Pro site at $49 plus 0.5%, CraftedStays at $89.99. Ten builders with their published prices, who each one fits, and what the percentage plans really cost once your own site starts selling.
How to increase direct bookings for hotels, and what each step costs
A dollar of booking value moved from a platform to your own website is worth about twelve cents to you. Here is every step that moves it, with what each one costs to put in place and how much it has to return before it breaks even.
What a direct booking website needs, what it costs, and how to test yours
A direct booking website is your own site with a booking engine inside it, so a guest books and pays you with no commission on top. What the four parts cost, where fifteen systems put the guest's card, and a twenty minute test you can run tonight with your own card.
What is occupancy tax, and who collects it at your property
Occupancy tax is what a guest owes the local government for a short stay, and you are the one who collects it and sends it in. Here is who remits it on a direct booking, which platforms collect for you, how to register and file, and what to do if you have not been collecting.