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We’re coming into budget and planning season.
Are you pumped?
Every year, hotel teams everywhere gather around boardroom tables to ask two questions:
- How do we increase revenue?
- How can we increase efficiency or even decrease costs?
Those two questions add up to one thing: profitability.
And yet, every year, a big slice of profitability slips away.
My goal with today's Bookings Boost isn't to diss the OTAs.
It's an invitation to think differently about your hotel business.
You make significant investments each year.
- ad campaigns
- social media storytelling
- SEO and AI search (fingers crossed it's in your plan)
- PMS and booking engines
- integrated guest-journey tech stacks
- email marketing, CRM and loyalty tools
- service training
- guest experience upgrades
- renovations, capital improvements, and design refreshes
- and on it goes
Additionally, your DMO supports this effort through destination campaigns, government funding, and advocacy for infrastructure development.
Together, you create the demand.
But when travelers search your hotel’s name, and the OTAs capture it, they claim the guest and take a commission.
Your guest books.
Your hotel delivers.
The OTAs have just monetized your brand.
But this isn’t just about commission.
It’s about the ripple effect you don’t see:
- Profit erosion – 15–30% commission off the top.
- Lost remarketing – no guest email, no loyalty loop.
- Brand dilution – their name gets remembered, not yours.
- Higher operating costs – you fund the systems, they skim the reward.
- Community loss – millions of tourism dollars leave towns and regions every year.
Your hotel and your community become dependent on a cycle.
This cycle can weaken long-term growth.
Here's a brief chat I had with Peter Pilarski from the Tourism AI Network.
We talked about why OTAs harm sustainability.
And yet, within that challenge lies the opportunity.
The same qualities that make independents reliant on OTAs also put them in the best position to break free.
I attended the Independent Hotel Show in Miami earlier this month.
In several conversations with hoteliers, it became clear: independents are actually in the strongest position to regain profitability.
Why?
Because they can deliver what new travel markets are demanding.
- Unique, one-of-a-kind experiences.
- Authentic connections to places and people.
- Agility and speed to adapt.
- Stories that feel alive, not templated.
- Personalized loyalty.
This is the winning position.
And it’s not about competing with OTAs at their game.
It’s about leaning harder into what makes independents stand out.
Here's how to lean into it:
- OTA channels are for reach.
They broaden distribution and put you in front of travelers you might not reach on your own. They are a cost.
- Direct channels are for brand growth and profit.
Every guest you convert directly is worth more to your bottom line.
Every direct booking strengthens your brand and becomes an investment in your future.
- Direct channels build loyalty.
Guests come back to you, not to the platform.
That’s why nurturing the guest relationship must be your top priority.
This is the work I do with hotels.
Helping them shift from dependency to balance, strengthening their direct channel, and building systems that keep profit, data, and loyalty where they belong: with the hotel.
Here is one tip you can implement today - ABC.
Always. Be. Converting.
If you had to pick one priority for 2026, this is it: capture emails and phone numbers from OTA and third-party guests.
Convert OTA profiles into your own contacts.
Give them a compelling reason to choose you.
Remarket to them, inviting them to look your way versus the OTA.
If you don’t shift this dynamic, you’ll keep paying 2, 3, 4 times - yikes!
Once for the demand you created,
And then again, when the OTAs cash in.
In 2026, someone will profit from your brand.
The only question is -> will it be you, or the OTAs?
P.S. Did you catch me mentioning the Cash Calculator in the video?
If you’re a hotelier curious about your total acquisition costs and want to make a shift for 2026, just hit reply with the word “CASH” and I’ll send it your way.
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