Kimberly was tired of the middleman. After listing her vacation rental on Airbnb for years, she started looking for ways to take back control of her own business - and her own revenue.

Many vacation rental hosts share the same frustrations when working with online travel agencies (OTAs). Companies like Airbnb and VRBO revolutionized the market by making vacation rental ownership accessible to everyone, offering the complete package of booking, payment, and messaging tools. However, these services come at cost.

Hosts are becoming less tolerant of the amount of control (and revenue) they’re sacrificing to third parties. There is a shift happening in the short-term rental world as hosts search for ways to minimize profit loss and maximize authentic, human connection. Many of these hosts have turned to direct booking options.

Direct booking hosts use their own website and reservation software to communicate directly with guests who are booking travel. This eliminates the need for an OTA in the middle, and limits fees for both parties. Keep reading to learn how direct booking can help you get more out of your vacation rental.

Avoid Extra Fees

OTAs like Airbnb provide all sorts of services to their hosts - booking & messaging tools, advertising & exposure, and even a safety net of insurance coverage and customer service policies. But, they aren’t offering these things for free.

Airbnb charges hosts 3% of their guest’s checkout price. However, Airbnb also adds up to a 14.2% free to each guest’s booking total. That means that each time you receive a booking, Airbnb takes 17.2% of what your guest pays. VRBO and other OTAs have similar fee structures.

What would you do with an extra 17% per booking? Many vacation rental hosts turn to direct booking as a way to minimize third-party fees, keep more revenue in their pockets, and provide a more transparent experience for their guests.

Make Your Own Choices

Direct booking puts you back in the driver’s seat for all decisions relating to your vacation rental. No longer are you held to a set of third-party policies; you make your own rules when it comes to cancellations, refunds, and special situations.

Vacation rentals aren’t one-size-fits-all. By communicating with guests directly, you can handle booking requests - even unique ones - in your own way. This makes travel more personal, and protects you from refund and cancellation policies that don’t benefit your business.

The transparency of direct booking builds trust and connection between hosts and guests. Direct booking is the first step towards controlling the experience that guests have with your property.

Gain Exposure

Driving web traffic to your small direct booking site can be challenging. OTA giants monopolize search results for vacation rentals, and smaller websites can easily get buried. Because of this, many vacation rental hosts rely solely on Airbnb & VRBO to help new renters find their listing.

While OTAs are great for search exposure, these sites are prone to bury properties within their algorithms. OTAs often favor listings with a ‘high conversion rate’, meaning the more renters they get and the faster they turn over, the higher that listing appears in search results. Popular accommodations get pushed to the top, and new or less frequented properties can get lost in the shuffle.

Nofie was created to level the playing field between large OTAs and smaller, direct booking hosts. When a guest finds your property on Nofie, you can send them straight to your own website to book. Nofie builds the connection for free, and drives traffic to your listing without algorithmic bias.

And, it doesn’t stop with Nofie. With your own direct booking site, you unlock the opportunity to build your own brand and promote it through your own social media and advertising channels.

Make Travel Human Again

With a direct booking experience, your guests will feel the hospitality through their computer screens. Many travelers enjoy supporting small, independent businesses and dealing firsthand with hosts (instead of a mechanical, corporate middleman). Talking directly to guests creates a more genuine human experience that will remind you why you started hosting in the first place.

In addition to a more authentic, human experience, direct booking grants you the peace of mind that comes with knowing exactly who has your keys. After building a personal connection with a host, guests are more likely to be respectful of rules and property guidelines.

An extraordinary vacation rental experience starts with real, honest connection. Direct booking opens up more opportunities for building relationship and memories…and makes travel feel a little bit more human again.

Ready to get started with direct booking?