What a direct booking website needs: a guide for B&Bs and holiday homes

Most B&B and holiday-home websites are brochures: nice photos, a few words, and a phone number or an enquiry form. Guests who like what they see then go back to Booking.com or Airbnb to book, because that is where they can see a price and confirm in two minutes. A direct booking website closes that gap.

In our review of 21 Irish accommodation websites, only about six took bookings online. The others relied on a form, a phone number, a link to Booking.com, or nothing at all.

1. A real booking engine, on your own site

The heart of it is a booking engine: the part of your website where a guest picks dates, sees what is available, and pays or leaves a card. An enquiry form is not one: the guest has to wait for your answer, and many will book elsewhere in the meantime.

What to look for:

• Live availability, kept in step with Booking.com and Airbnb by a channel manager, so you never double-book.
• The engine opens on your site, or on a page in your colours, with your name. A jump to an unfamiliar page at the last step loses guests.
• Works well on a phone: big buttons, a date picker that is easy to use with a thumb, no zooming needed.
• A booking button on every page, not only on the home page. Guests decide on the room page, the gallery or the local guide.

Our guide to direct booking engines for small B&Bs compares Freetobook, eviivo, Beds24, Lodgify, Smoobu, Little Hotelier and others, with their published prices.

2. Prices and terms, before the guest clicks “book”

Guests compare. A site that hides its rates, or adds charges at the last step, sends them back to the platform.

• Show prices per room or per house, at least “from” prices by season, on the room pages.
• Show the full price. The CCPC says prices shown to consumers “must include all applicable taxes”, with no hidden charges, and that any extra charge must be made clear before purchase. If you charge for cleaning, pets or late arrival, say so up front.
• Say what is included: breakfast, towels and linen, parking, Wi-Fi.
• Put your terms where guests see them: check-in and check-out times, deposit, cancellation policy, minimum stay, children and pets.

3. A reason to book with you rather than the platform

Since 14 November 2024, Booking.com has had to comply with the EU’s Digital Markets Act. The European Commission’s factsheet says this means accommodation providers can offer different prices, availability or conditions on other online channels, “including their own websites”. In other words, Booking.com can no longer stop you being cheaper on your own site.

You do not have to cut your price to win direct bookings. Simple, honest perks work too: a free late check-out, a welcome drink, a better choice of room, or more flexible cancellation for guests who book with you. Say what the perk is next to your booking button.

On Airbnb, keep to its rules: do not invite guests who booked through Airbnb to book outside it, and do not leave “book direct” cards in the room, which also reach Airbnb guests.

4. Trust, in the first few seconds

A guest is about to give a card number to a small business they have never met. Help them:

• Your own web address and email (yourbandb.ie and [email protected] rather than a free email account).
• A secure site (the padlock, “https”). Browsers mark a site without it as “Not secure”.
• Real, recent photos of your rooms, and of you if you are happy to be in them.
• Recent reviews, quoted with the guest’s first name, the source and the month. Old reviews from 2019 do more harm than good.
• Full contact details: address, a phone number that can be tapped on a mobile, and your registration number once the short-term letting register is in place.

5. Speed and phones

Many visitors arrive on a phone, often on a weak signal in the car or on a train. Google’s threshold for a good experience is showing the main content in under 2.5 seconds; in our review, 19 of the 20 sites we could measure were slower than that. Heavy photos and old themes are the usual causes. Check yours in two minutes with our mobile speed guide or the free website check.

6. Your guests’ languages

Twenty of the 21 sites we reviewed were in English only, although many visitors to the west of Ireland come from mainland Europe. A home page and booking page in French or German, checked by a native speaker, answers them in their own language and appears in their searches. See should your B&B website be in French and German?

7. Your rates in Google’s free booking links

When people look for somewhere to stay on Google, it can show your own rate next to the platforms’, with a link to book on your website. Google says hotel partners “pay no fee for free booking links”. To appear, your rates and availability have to reach Google through a connectivity partner, usually your booking engine or channel manager: Google’s advice to hotel owners who use a reservation system is to “check with them, and they can set up your booking links for you”. Ask yours.

Pair it with a complete Google Business Profile, which is free and is often the first thing guests see.

Does it pay?

Each guest who books direct instead of through a platform keeps the commission with you, minus a few per cent for your booking system and card fees. Airbnb charges most hosts 15.5%; Booking.com’s rate is in your contract. Our direct booking calculator shows, with your own prices, how many direct bookings pay for a website, and the fee calculator what one booking costs you on each platform.

The short version

1. A booking engine on your site, with live availability and a button on every page.
2. Full prices, what is included and your terms, before the guest clicks.
3. A reason to book direct: a fair price or a perk, said clearly.
4. Trust: your own domain and email, https, recent photos and reviews, full contact details.
5. Fast on a phone.
6. In your guests’ languages.
7. Your rates in Google’s free booking links, through your booking engine.

For everything else a B&B website should have, see our checklist from 21 Irish sites.