Using OTAs without being used.

In the GetYourGuide piece we looked at the dark side of portals: commissions someone else can raise with a month's notice, customer contacts that stay with them, dependence that costs you. But the conclusion was never "run from the OTAs", and this piece is the second half of the argument: how to use them deliberately, as a demanding customer, instead of being at their mercy.

The right frame comes from Martin Harlow, the distribution expert Arival quotes on that very case: don't obsess over the commission, make them earn it. An OTA is a marketing vendor paid on percentage. Like any vendor, use it where it returns more than it costs, and fire it where it doesn't.

Where OTAs earn their commission

Three situations where 15-20% is a good deal.

The launch. When you're starting out, nobody knows you and trust has to be borrowed. Portals are trust for rent: the traveler doesn't trust you yet, but they trust BookYogaRetreats or whatever platform they've used for years, its reviews, its payment system. In your first year or two, the commission is the price of a problem you couldn't solve that fast on your own.

Markets where you're nobody. Your direct channel works where your name circulates. For the German or American market, where no one has ever heard of you, the portal is often the cheapest door in: it does the work of being findable in that language and that market. As foreign guests become former guests (and your English-language site does its job), the direct channel grows there too.

Dates you wouldn't fill anyway. The empty-seat math applies here as well: on a date your direct channel won't sell out, 80% of something beats 100% of nothing. Low season, new dates, weak departures: that's the right inventory to put on portals.

Now flip the logic: your best dates, the ones your direct channel fills on its own, have nothing to gain on a portal. Every OTA booking on a date you'd have sold direct anyway is pure commission given away. The question isn't "should I be on OTAs, yes or no?" but date by date: can I sell this one myself, or do I need help?

The rules of engagement

Four practices to stay the customer, not the product.

First: give portals selective availability, not your whole calendar. Weak dates yes, strong dates no or in small doses. Check what your contract says about price and availability parity (clauses vary between portals and have changed over the years, in Europe more than once thanks to competition authorities): many impose less than hosts believe, and what they do impose should be known, not suffered.

Second: polish your listing like you polish your website, because it's a landing page in every sense: the right photos (everything in the ad-creative piece applies here too), copy that leads with the promise rather than the schedule, reviews with replies. Paying commission on a neglected listing is the worst of both worlds.

Third: monitor the relationship with real numbers: share of bookings per channel, total commissions paid per year (written in currency, not percentage: it hits differently), and growth of your direct share. A portal is a vendor: it gets re-evaluated every year.

Fourth, the most important: build the bridge home. The goal of every OTA booking is for it to be that customer's last one through the portal. The platform masks their real email, but then the guest arrives at your door in person for a week, and there the relationship legitimately becomes yours: the welcome message with your WhatsApp, the real email collected at check-in ("I'll send the info and the week's photos here"), the experience doing the rest, and at departure a reason to come back direct ("guests who book through our site get first pick of dates and the best rate: want me to put you on the list?"). Your pre-arrival sequence and your repeat-guest work count double for OTA guests: they're customers acquired at full commission price, and the only way to recoup that is the second booking. Just do it with class: no "book direct so I save money" in the first message inside the platform, which besides violating the terms of service is also ugly. The bridge gets built during the stay, in person, where no terms of service can reach.

What you can do right now

First: calculate your annual commissions in real money. That's a marketing budget you're already spending: the question "could I buy something better with part of it?" asks itself.

Second: review the availability you give portals with the date-by-date logic: strong dates direct, weak dates to the portals. If today everyone gets everything, this is your change of the week.

Third: design the bridge for your next arriving OTA guest: real email at check-in, WhatsApp, an explicit reason to return direct. One converted guest pays back the commission that brought them.

The real work is the dynamic balancing act: how much to give portals this year, how much to invest in your direct channel, and how to shift the mix as your own channel grows. If you'd like to see your current mix and what it's costing you, that's one of the first things we calculate together in a free audit.

Sources & references

1. Arival · "GetYourGuide Commission Increasing for Some Operators" (2025) and Martin Harlow, "Essential OTA Checklist for Experience Operators" · https://arival.travel/article/getyourguide-commission-increasing-for-some-operators/ and https://arival.travel/article/essential-ota-checklist-for-experience-operators/ · The "make them earn that commission" frame and the practice of periodically re-evaluating resellers. Verified July 2026.
2. Revinate · Hospitality Benchmark Report · https://www.revinate.com/hospitality-benchmark-report/ · ~95% revenue retained on direct bookings vs ~82% via OTA; portal email-alias mechanism. Verified July 2026.
3. Cloudbeds · OTA Commission Rates · https://www.cloudbeds.com/online-travel-agencies/commissions/ · Commission ranges 15-25%. Already cited. Verified July 2026.