Selling through GetYourGuide, Viator and other online travel agencies costs a tour operator a commission on every booking, and that commission usually lands on your most profitable seats. OTAs are worth keeping for reach, but every booking you move to your own website keeps the full price in your business. The real question is not “OTA or direct”, but how much each channel costs you per booking and how to shift the repeat and planned bookings to direct over time.
This guide shows how to do the maths for your own tours, where OTAs genuinely earn their fee, and the practical steps that move bookings to your own site without breaking your relationship with the platforms.
What OTA commission really is
OTAs charge a commission on each confirmed booking rather than a listing fee. GetYourGuide, for example, says listing is free, that you are only charged commission on successful bookings, and that rates vary by country of operation, with the exact amount shared after sign-up (GetYourGuide Supply). Other platforms work on a similar commission model, and many operators find the combined cost of distribution lands somewhere in the region of a fifth to a third of the ticket price. Check your own contracts: the figure that matters is the one on your invoices, not an industry average.
Commission is not the only cost. OTAs often expect rate parity (the same price everywhere), may require you to honour their cancellation policies, and own the customer relationship: the guest’s email and future bookings belong to the platform, not to you.
Do the maths per booking, not per year
The clearest way to see the cost is to compare what you keep from one booking in each channel. A worked example, using illustrative numbers rather than any platform’s actual rate:
| Booked on an OTA | Booked direct on your site | |
|---|---|---|
| Ticket price per guest | €150 | €150 |
| Commission (example: 25%) | −€37.50 | €0 |
| Payment processing (example: 2%) | included | −€3.00 |
| You keep | €112.50 | €147.00 |
In this example a direct booking keeps €34.50 more per guest. For a family of four that is €138 on one booking. Multiply by the share of your guests who could have booked direct, and the annual figure is often larger than the operator’s whole marketing budget. Put your own commission rate, price and card fees into the same table before you decide anything.
The OTA booking that hurts most is not the stranger who found you on the platform. It is the guest who had already decided on you, searched your name, and booked through the OTA because it appeared first.
Where OTAs genuinely earn their fee
OTAs are not the enemy. They are a paid marketing channel, and for some bookings the fee is fair:
- Discovery. Travellers who have never heard of you and browse a destination on the app. You would not have reached them otherwise.
- Last-minute and in-destination bookings, where speed and a trusted app matter more than anything else.
- Markets you cannot reach yourself, such as long-haul travellers who only book on the platforms they already use.
- Reviews and social proof, especially for new operators.
The aim is to pay OTA commission only for bookings the OTA actually created, and to win the rest yourself.
Which bookings you can realistically move to direct
Look at your bookings and sort them into three groups:
- Brand searchers: guests who searched your company or tour name and still booked through an OTA. These are the first to win back, because they already chose you.
- Planners: guests who book weeks or months ahead after researching the destination. They read blogs, compare options and are reachable through content and search.
- Repeat guests and referrals: anyone who has been with you before, or was sent by someone who has.
Spontaneous, in-destination bookings from travellers who never heard of you are usually best left to the platforms.
Six ways to win more direct bookings
- Own your brand search. Make sure your website is the first result for your name and your tour names, with a clear booking button above the fold. If OTAs advertise on your brand name, a small brand campaign in Google Ads can protect those searches; our guide to negative keywords helps keep such a campaign tight.
- Make booking direct easy. Two or three clicks from the product page to payment, prices shown in text, mobile checkout that works with one thumb.
- Give a reason to book direct that respects any parity terms in your contracts: a free photo package, flexible rebooking, a small gift on arrival, or a reader or partner discount where you are allowed to offer one.
- Answer the planners’ questions. A blog that ranks for “best month for…”, “what to wear for…” and “is it worth it” brings planners straight to your site instead of an OTA listing.
- Keep the relationship. Collect email addresses from direct guests (with consent), send a short post-trip email asking for a review, and invite them back next season.
- Use affiliates you choose. Travel bloggers who send readers to your own booking page on a commission you set can bring planned bookings at a lower cost than an OTA. Hungrytravelfamily, our own travel blog, works this way with tour operators.
Measure the shift
Track the share of bookings by channel every month, the commission paid, and the cost of your own marketing. A useful single figure is the effective distribution cost: total commission plus direct marketing spend, divided by total revenue. If your direct share rises and the effective cost falls, the plan is working. Connect your booking system to Google Analytics 4 so you can see which pages and campaigns produced direct bookings, and use a break-even ROAS calculation before scaling any paid campaign.
Content is usually the cheapest long-term lever, because a page that ranks keeps bringing planners for years. That is the idea behind our SEO blog system for travel brands: posts that answer your guests’ questions and send them to your own booking page.
Frequently asked questions
Should we leave GetYourGuide or Viator?
Usually not. Treat them as a paid acquisition channel for travellers you could not reach yourself, and focus on moving brand searchers, planners and repeat guests to direct.
Can we offer a lower price on our own website?
Check your contracts first: some platforms expect rate parity. Added value for direct bookers (extras, flexibility) is often allowed even where a lower price is not.
What commission do OTAs charge?
It varies by platform, country and agreement. GetYourGuide, for instance, says its rate depends on your country of operation and is confirmed after sign-up. Use the rate in your own contract for any calculation.
How quickly can we increase direct bookings?
Brand-search fixes and a simpler booking path can help within weeks. Content that wins planners typically builds over three to six months and compounds after that.
Is paid advertising cheaper than OTA commission?
Sometimes. Compare the cost per booking from ads with the commission you would pay on the same booking, and only scale campaigns that beat it.
The short version
OTA commission is a marketing cost, and it is fair only for the bookings the platform truly created. Calculate what each channel leaves you per guest, protect your brand search, make direct booking easy, and build content that reaches planners before they open an OTA app. Each booking you move to direct is margin you keep.