TL;DR: The OTA guest is already in your house, so the second stay is yours to win. Use the moments the platform does not control: check-in, the room, breakfast and checkout. Ask for permission to stay in touch, then send one personal thank-you with your own booking link. Offer a benefit rather than a lower price, and check your OTA contract and data-protection rules first.
A couple from Vienna books two nights through Booking.com. They love the room with the balcony, chat with the owner at breakfast, and leave a kind review. Next spring they want to come back. They open the same app, search the town, and book you again, through the platform, with commission. Nobody ever told them they could book the balcony room directly.
How to get an OTA guest to book direct next time is mostly a question of what happens while they are with you. This article lists the messages and moments, with wordings you can adapt. It is part of our boutique hotel marketing strategy guide.
Why is the second stay worth winning?
Because the platform has already paid to find the guest, and a direct repeat booking costs you no commission and tends to be more reliable. The first stay is the OTA's contribution. The second is where a small property gets its own relationship back, along with the guest's habit of booking with you.
Commission is the obvious saving. Guesty, a property-management software vendor, describes the Booking.com commission as typically 10–25%, about 15% on average, charged on the total reservation value including cleaning and similar fees (Guesty, 2025). Check your own rate in your contract.
Reliability is the less obvious one. Cloudbeds, a hotel-software vendor, reports from its own booking data that OTA bookings were cancelled at 21.8% in 2025, more than double the 10.6% rate for direct bookings (Cloudbeds). A returning guest who books direct is a booking you are more likely to keep.
The value of one returning guest is easy to estimate: booking value × your commission rate = the commission you keep each time they come back direct. Illustrative figures, in euros: a two-night stay worth 240, at the 15% average commission in Guesty's description, keeps 36 with you each time the guest returns direct; three returns keep 108.
Which moments during the stay can you use?
The ones in your house: check-in, the room, breakfast, conversations and checkout. Platform messaging systems have their own rules, and you should read your OTA's current terms before putting your booking link into a platform message. The face-to-face moments are yours, and they are where a guest decides whether they would come back.
Short stays leave little time. Cloudbeds' vendor data shows that more than two-thirds of bookings were for one or two nights in 2025 (Cloudbeds). For a two-night guest you have perhaps four real moments, so plan them:
| Moment | What you do | What the guest takes away |
|---|---|---|
| Check-in | Hand over a small card with the key: your booking link, the room name, one direct benefit | A physical reminder with your domain on it |
| In the room | A guest information folder that also lives as a page on your website | Your website in their browser history |
| Breakfast | A real conversation; mention the season they might like to come back in | A reason to return |
| Checkout | Ask: "May we write to you when the autumn dates open?" | A yes, or a no you respect |
The check-in card is the strongest single item. Keep it short: "Next time, book with us directly and choose your room. The balcony room is number 4." Add the link and a QR code. Do not print a price or a discount on it.
What should the message after checkout say?
Thank the guest, mention something specific from the stay, and give your own booking link with the direct benefit. Send it only to guests who said yes to hearing from you, and keep it to one short message. A review request can go in the same note, asked of every guest in the same way.
Example (illustrative, not a real case): the owner of a nine-room guesthouse sees that most of her bookings arrive through an OTA. She exports the guest list from her property management system and marks the guests who agreed at checkout to hear from her. Two days after each checkout, she sends a note drafted with AI and then edited by hand: "Thank you for staying in the garden room. If you would like to come back in autumn, you can book directly here and choose your room again." The link points to her own booking engine, with next season's dates preselected. She keeps a column in the guest list for whether the guest later booked direct.
A wording you can adapt:
Dear Anna and Markus, thank you for your two nights with us. We hope the walk to the lake was worth the early start. When you plan your next trip, you can book directly on our site and choose the balcony room again: [booking link]. If you have a moment, we would also be glad of a review, whatever you thought of the stay. Warm regards, Eva
The last sentence of the request matters. Google bars selectively soliciting positive reviews, requiring staff to collect a set number of reviews, or asking for reviews that name a staff member (Google Maps contribution policy). Ask everyone, in the same words, whether they were happy or not.
Should you offer a lower direct rate to returning guests?
Offer a benefit first, and treat a price difference as a contract question. A room choice, early check-in, a late checkout or a bottle of local wine costs less than a discount and is easy to state. Whether you may also undercut your OTA rate depends on your contract and your country.
In Hungary, Booking.com dropped its parity clauses from 1 July 2024, after the competition authority GVH fined it HUF 382.5 million over urgency messages (GVH, 2024). Elsewhere, read the rate clauses in your current contract before you publish a lower price on your site.
A practical middle path that many owners can use regardless of parity terms: keep the published rate equal, and give returning guests something that is not a rate. "Returning guests choose their room" is easy to deliver in a nine-room house and hard for any OTA listing to copy.
How do you follow up after the first thank-you?
With the seasonal emails you send to all past guests who opted in, not with a separate push. One thank-you, then an invitation when the season they enjoyed comes round again, is enough. More frequent messages to a guest who stayed two nights tend to be read as spam, and an unsubscribe ends the relationship.
Time the seasonal invitation from your booking window. If your guests typically book six weeks ahead, the email for the autumn harvest goes out in late summer. The full sequence for the year, with send dates and wordings, is in direct booking emails for past guests.
Record the result. A simple column in the guest list, first booked via OTA, later booked direct, tells you after one season whether the cards and notes are working, and which wording guests responded to.
Action plan
These steps take a few hours to set up and a few minutes per guest after that. Start with the card and the checkout question, because they need no software. Add the post-stay note once you have a few consents, and review the guest-list column at the end of the season before changing anything.
- Print a check-in card with your booking link, the room name and one direct benefit.
- Put the guest information folder on a page of your website as well.
- Train everyone at reception to ask the checkout question and record the answer with the date.
- Write one post-stay note template and adapt it for each guest.
- Ask every guest for a review in the same words.
- Add a column to the guest list: later booked direct, yes or no.
- After a season, read the column. More ways to bring guests to your site are in how a small hotel can increase direct bookings.
If you want help writing check-in cards, post-stay notes and seasonal invitations that sound like you, we are building the Conversion Copywriting Pack. Get notified when it launches.
FAQ
Can I contact a guest who booked through an OTA?
You can talk to them in person during the stay, and you can ask whether they would like to hear from you later. Platform messaging systems have their own rules about links and contact details, so read your OTA's current terms first. For marketing emails, ask for permission and record it, as your data-protection rules require.
What should I put on a check-in card?
Your direct booking link and a QR code, the name of the room the guest is staying in, and one benefit of booking direct, such as choosing the room again. Keep it short and personal, and leave prices and discounts off the card. A card that looks like a flyer is easier to ignore than one that looks like a note.
Is it allowed to offer returning guests a cheaper direct rate?
That depends on your OTA contract and your country. In Hungary Booking.com dropped its parity clauses from July 2024; elsewhere, check the rate clauses in your current contract. Many small properties keep the published price equal and give returning guests a benefit instead, such as room choice or a late checkout.
When should I send the thank-you message?
A day or two after checkout works well, while the stay is still fresh. Send it only to guests who agreed to hear from you, mention one specific detail from their stay, and include your own booking link. After that, invite them again with your seasonal emails rather than sending a series of follow-ups.
Sources
- How much does Booking.com charge hosts? — Guesty (vendor description), 2025.
- 2026 State of Independent Hotels Report — Cloudbeds (vendor booking data), 2026.
- Fake engagement and conflict of interest — Google Maps contribution policy, accessed 2026.
- Record fine: GVH fines Booking almost HUF 400 million — Gazdasági Versenyhivatal (Hungarian Competition Authority), 2024.