Every Booking.com reservation costs you one night in five
The platforms take 15 to 25 % of each stay. Here is what an accommodation website has to do to win a share of those bookings back direct.
Pull up last month's commission statement. Divide it by your average nightly rate. That is the number of nights you worked for free.
In most markets Booking.com advertises a standard commission of around 15 %. Add the Genius and Preferred Partner programmes, add payment processing, and the real cost of a booking routinely lands at 20 to 25 % of what the guest actually pays. One night in five. Sometimes one in four.
This is not a scandal, it is a price. The platforms buy visibility at a scale no property in Sint Maarten, Saint Martin or St Barts could afford alone. The question is not whether to leave them. It is how many of those bookings could have come to you direct.
The traveller is already searching for you by name
This is the part almost everyone misses. The real journey of an American guest looks like this: they find your property on a platform, they hesitate, then they type your name into Google to see what you actually look like.
That moment belongs to you. It happens after discovery and before payment. And it plays out on your website, your Google listing and your photos.
If what they land on is slow, French only, priced nowhere and with no obvious way to reach you, they go back to the platform and you pay the commission. If they find a fast, clear English page with availability and a way to message you, a share of those guests books direct. Not all of them. A share is enough.
The four things that swing a direct booking
A visible, consistent price. Hiding your rates to "get them to call" does not work on a traveller comparing six properties in ten minutes. And a direct rate that is higher than the platform rate kills the whole exercise: your margin is precisely where the commission is not.
A reason to book with you. Not an aggressive discount, which your rate parity agreements often forbid anyway. Something only you can give: the airport transfer, the dinner table held for the night you arrive, the upgrade subject to availability, the late checkout. None of that costs you 20 %.
A fast reply. A contact form checked every three days is worthless against instant confirmation. This is where the islands' informal channel earns its keep, and we went through how to use it properly in our piece on WhatsApp Business: a twenty minute answer converts what a 48 hour quote has already lost.
English written to be read. Half of your direct buyers fly in from the US east coast. They need to read your cancellation terms without running them through a translator.
What it actually changes
A property turning over €100,000 a year through the platforms leaves €20,000 to €25,000 with them. Winning back a fifth of that volume direct is not a commercial revolution: it is €4,000 to €5,000 a year that stays with you, for a site you pay for once.
It is also a customer base you own. An email address collected direct lets you follow up the next winter. A platform booking does not: that guest belongs to them.
We have laid out what belongs on this kind of site, section by section, on our page for hotel and accommodation websites.
Measured, not promised
Nobody can guarantee you a percentage of direct bookings, and we promise no one the first page of Google. What can be measured: the share of your revenue that comes in off platform, before and after. Take that number this month, write it down, read it again in April.
If the gap has not moved, your website is not the problem. If it has, you will know exactly what it earned you.
Our website pricing is public, lead times included — or get your quote within 24 hours and be ready for high season.