Como aumentar as reservas diretas para hotéis: 9 estratégias para 2026

Cada reserva feita através de uma OTA custa-lhe normalmente entre 15% e 30% em comissões.

E esse valor acumula-se rapidamente. Para um hotel independente com uma tarifa média de 150€ por noite, isso representa entre 22€ e 45€ por quarto e por noite que vão diretamente para Booking.com, Expedia ou Airbnb, em vez de ficarem no seu negócio.

Além disso, segundo o relatório U.S. Online Travel Overview 2025 da Phocuswright, as OTAs já representam mais de 40% das reservas hoteleiras online nos Estados Unidos, o que significa que muitas propriedades independentes estão a pagar comissões sobre quase metade da sua receita.

É por isso que transferir mais reservas para o seu próprio website — onde não paga qualquer comissão — é uma das decisões com maior impacto na rentabilidade do seu alojamento. Mas isso não acontece por acaso. As reservas diretas exigem um motor de reservas robusto, um website que transmita confiança, preços que recompensem os hóspedes por reservarem diretamente e relações fortes com os clientes que os façam regressar sem depender de uma OTA como intermediária.

Neste guia, apresentamos nove estratégias práticas para aumentar as reservas diretas do seu hotel, B&B ou alojamento, cobrindo desde a configuração do website e a visibilidade nos motores de pesquisa até à comunicação com hóspedes e programas de fidelização.

O benefício financeiro das reservas diretas é simples: eliminam a comissão paga a uma OTA em cada reserva. Por exemplo, se a sua propriedade atingir 60% de ocupação em 15 quartos com uma tarifa média de 140€ por noite, poderá poupar aproximadamente entre 27.000€ e 45.000€ por ano ao transferir apenas metade das reservas OTA para canais diretos. É margem que entra diretamente nos seus resultados — ou que pode ser reinvestida na experiência do hóspede, na equipa ou em marketing para gerar ainda mais reservas.

Para além da poupança em comissões, as reservas diretas oferecem algo que as OTAs limitam deliberadamente: os dados dos hóspedes. Quando alguém reserva através da Booking.com ou Airbnb, a OTA controla essa relação. Recebe apenas um endereço de email mascarado e informações limitadas sobre o hóspede. Quando a reserva é feita através do seu website, obtém o email real, preferências de reserva e histórico de estadias — dados que pode utilizar para enviar ofertas personalizadas, incentivar reservas repetidas e criar uma relação direta com os hóspedes fora das plataformas OTA.

As reservas diretas também lhe dão controlo sobre a experiência do hóspede desde o primeiro contacto. É você quem define a política de cancelamento, as condições de pagamento, as mensagens de confirmação e a comunicação antes da chegada. Esse controlo influencia diretamente a forma como os hóspedes percecionam o seu alojamento antes mesmo de chegarem.

Each of these strategies addresses a specific piece of the direct booking puzzle. Some are foundational elements you need in place before anything else works. Others build on that foundation to improve the results over time.

Your website is the single most important asset for direct bookings. When somebody visits your direct website after finding your hotel on an OTA – a habit practiced by 52% of travelers according to a Google study – that website needs to load quickly, look professional, and make booking a seamless process. In contrast, a slow, dated, or confusing website pushes that visitor straight back to the OTA!

However, a clean, mobile-responsive site with professional photography, clear room descriptions, transparent rates, and a prominent “Book Now” button on each page can convert a visitor into a commission-free guest.

The essentials your website needs to drive direct bookings:

eviivo Suite’s Website Manager includes SEO-optimized, mobile-friendly website templates at no extra hosting or design cost. Properties without an existing website can build one using the drag-and-drop Website Builder. Those with a site they wish to keep can add eviivo’s booking engine as a button or search widget and booking pages that blend with their brand.

Without a booking engine, your website can showcase your hotel but can’t actually accept reservations. Visitors may browse your pages and check your photos, but then they’ll leave to complete the booking on an OTA – and you’ll end up paying commission on a guest who was ready to book direct.

A booking engine plugs into your site and handles the entire reservation process: guests select dates, choose a room and extras, enter their payment details, and receive an instant confirmation.

What to look for in a hotel booking engine:

eviivo Suite™ includes a commission-free Booking Engine with every subscription. Every booking made through eviivo’s Booking Engie flows directly into your reservations calendar, with no booking engine fees and no commission.

Rate parity agreements with OTAs often prevent you from advertising a lower public rate on your own website than what’s listed on Booking.com or Expedia. But rate parity doesn’t mean you can’t make your direct channel more attractive.

Direct-only offers, packages, and added-value promotions give guests a reason to book direct without violating any OTA agreements.

The most effective promotions for driving direct bookings include:

Offers that are visible only on your direct website but hidden from OTA rate shoppers and competitors behind captcha controls are particularly effective. This is because they create a genuine incentive without undercutting your OTA rates publicly.

eviivo Suite’s Promo Manager supports all of these formats: Was/Now pricing, early-bird and last-minute deals, long-stay discounts, packages, promo codes, opaque (captcha-protected) deals, and channel-specific promotions. You have the option to create offers that only appear on your direct website, while channel-specific controls let you decide exactly which OTAs access which promos, rates and policies. Dynamic pricing rules also enable you to automatically adjust rates based on inventory levels, so you’re always pricing to demand without manual intervention.

Cutting OTAs entirely is rarely the right move. OTAs spend billions on marketing that puts your property in front of travelers who would never find your direct website through search alone. The billboard effect – where a guest discovers your property on an OTA, then searches your name directly to check your website – is well-documented and works in your favor when your website is set up to convert.

The best strategy is to use OTAs for discovery while making the direct booking experience a better option for searchers. List on the major channels (such as Booking.com, Expedia and Airbnb) to maximize visibility, but invest in your direct website so that travelers find a better experience with:

This distribution strategy requires a channel manager that keeps your rates, availability, and content synchronized in real time across every connected channel. Without real-time sync, you risk overbookings – and the damage to guest experience that accompany them. eviivo’s Channel Manager maintains deep two-way API connections with Booking.com, Airbnb, Expedia, Vrbo, Agoda, Google Hotel Ads, and dozens more, syncing rates, availability, content, policies, photos, guest messages, and reviews simultaneously. Channel-specific pricing lets you set different rates per channel, and you can open or close channels dynamically based on real-time demand levels.

The goal is a balanced distribution strategy: OTAs filling rooms during shoulder seasons and generating awareness year-round, while your direct channel captures a growing share of reservations at full margin.

Before you can be booked, your hotel’s website needs to be found. Travelers who don’t rely solely on OTAs for travel planning are likely to turn to search engines (such as Google and Bing) or, increasingly, AI-driven search tools. Therefore, it’s important to optimize your website for these platforms.

For example, when a traveler searches “boutique hotel in [your city]” or “B&B near [local landmark]” into Google, you want your website to appear in those results. SEO for hotels isn’t about competing with OTAs for broad terms like “hotels in Paris” – it’s about owning the searches where your property name, location, and unique positioning give you an advantage.

This has become even more relevant as we enter an era of AI-driven search powered by LLMs (large language models) such as OpenAI’s GPT models and Google’s Gemini. Phocuswright research shows rapid adoption of AI in travel planning, with nearly 40% of U.S. travelers using generative AI tools for trip planning in 2025 alone. This means you need to optimize your site for visibility in both SERPs (search engine results pages) and AI-led travel searches.

Start with the traditional SEO fundamentals:

Then take action to provide clear, detailed and structured content that AI tools can easily interpret:

eviivo Suite’s native instant Website Builder generates SEO-optimized pages, with support for SEO titles and descriptions, image captions and analytical tracking codes built into every template. You can also add AI-search friendly custom pages such as FAQs to eviivo’s integrated website templates. The embedded AI Prompter helps you craft professional, search-friendly descriptions for rooms and property pages, while the AI Translator can convert that content into multiple languages, allowing you to reach international travelers searching in their native language.

A traveler comparing your direct website against an OTA listing will look for one thing above everything else: social proof. eviivo’s Global Traveler Survey found that guest reviews are the most influential factor in choosing where to stay for 1 in 5 travelers. Actively managing your reputation across platforms directly affects how many visitors convert into direct bookings.

This means you should aim to:

eviivo Suite automates review collection from Booking.com, Airbnb, Expedia, and Vrbo, bringing all reviews into one unified messaging inbox for easy monitoring and response. You can also curate the reviews that appear on your direct website, showcasing the feedback that best represents your guest experience and builds confidence for new visitors considering a direct booking.

The relationship between your property and a direct-booking guest doesn’t start at check-in and end at checkout. Every touchpoint — from the confirmation email to the post-stay follow-up — is an opportunity to deliver an experience OTAs can’t match, and to set up the next direct booking.

A well-structured automated messaging sequence covers each stage of the guest journey:

That post-stay promo code closes the loop: a guest who has a great experience and receives a personalized incentive is far more likely to book direct next time than to go back to an OTA.

eviivo Suite’s Guest Manager handles this entire sequence with a drag-and-drop email designer, automated triggers at each stage, and support for messaging delivery via email, WhatsApp, and SMS. In addition, eviivo Concierge™ – an AI-powered chatbot trained on your property’s data and website content – answers guest questions on your direct website 24/7 to help guide visitors toward booking, effectively acting as a round-the-clock front desk for your online presence.

For email marketing beyond automated stay-related messages, eviivo Suite supports the management of rich guest profiles in a contact address book that lets you separate real guest email addresses from masked OTA emails. It also integrates with Brevo, Mailchimp or your CRM system (via Zapier), so you can build segmented mailing lists and send targeted campaigns to past guests with seasonal offers, event announcements, or loyalty rewards. Our guide to boosting guest satisfaction and revenue covers these communication strategies in more depth.

You don’t need a formal points-based loyalty program to encourage repeat direct bookings. Independent hotels and B&Bs can build guest loyalty with simple, personal touches that large chains and OTAs can’t easily replicate.

A few approaches that work well for independent properties:

eviivo Suite supports promo codes, loyalty codes, and membership IDs that unlock exclusive rates through your website. The gated webpage feature also lets you create members-only content accessible via booking reference or membership ID.

Combined with eviivo’s post-stay automated messaging, you have a complete loop: guest books direct → enjoys their stay → receives a personalized incentive → books direct again.

Metasearch engines like Google Hotel Ads, trivago, and KAYAK aggregate hotel prices from multiple sources and display them side by side. When a traveler searches for accommodation and sees your property listed on Google with prices from Booking.com, Expedia, and your direct website, they can click through to whichever source offers the best deal. If your direct rate is competitive – or better, thanks to rate plans or promos specific to Google – metasearch becomes a direct booking channel in its own right.

Google Hotel Ads is the highest-priority metasearch channel for many independent properties because it appears directly in Google search results and Google Maps. When a traveler searches your property name, your rates and an “Official Website” button appear in the knowledge panel alongside OTA pricing. Properties with competitive direct rates and a working booking engine can capture a meaningful share of clicks from this placement alone.

Retargeting is another paid channel worth considering: visitors who have viewed your website but didn’t complete a booking can see targeted ads reminding them to come back and book direct. This works particularly well for properties in destinations where travelers compare multiple options before deciding.

eviivo Suite’s Channel Manager connects to Google Hotel Ads (as a Google Hotel Ads Certified Partner), trivago, and KAYAK. Social media channels, local partnerships with nearby businesses and attractions, and targeted advertising through platforms like Facebook and Instagram can also drive awareness and traffic to your direct booking page. For a broader look at driving traffic and bookings, our hotel marketing strategies guide covers 14 additional tactics worth considering.

The goal isn’t to abandon OTAs – it’s to reduce dependency on them while growing the share of bookings that come commission-free through your own website. Even properties that achieve 40-60% direct bookings still rely on OTAs for visibility and shoulder-season fill.

To strike the right bookings balance, track your channel mix regularly. Know what percentage of bookings come from each OTA, what percentage come direct, and what the effective revenue is from each channel after commissions. A room booked at $150 through Booking.com (at 15% commission) nets you $127.50. The same room booked direct at $145 – a 3% lower rate as a web-exclusive – nets you $145. Therefore, the direct booking is more profitable even at a discount.

Focus on profitability per booking rather than occupancy alone. Track your cost per acquisition (CPA) by channel, monitor guest lifetime value (LTV) for direct bookers versus OTA bookers, and watch your direct booking conversion rate over time. A property running 80% occupancy at full OTA commission is often less profitable than one running 70% occupancy with a higher direct booking share. Use OTAs strategically: lean on them during low-demand periods and tighten availability on OTA channels during peak season when your direct channel can fill rooms without the commission cost.

eviivo Suite centralizes all customer information to help you understand guests’ lifetime value. A range of integrated Key Figures, Charts and System Reports enable you to track commission costs, booking volume, and booking revenue by channel over any specified date range, while the custom report writer can unlock comparative insights on total OTA commissions by booking source or channel.

Mark Simpson, Founder of direct booking platform Boostly, recommends the following strategies for accommodation providers who want to reduce OTA dependence: