The OTA Question Hotels Still Aren't Asking
The conversation about OTAs hasn't changed much in a decade. Hotels complain about commission rates, and OTAs point to the visibility they provide. Industry conferences host the same panel debates, and the needle barely moves.
So, when we’re stuck in the same cycle, there’s a question that rarely gets asked but one that matters more than commission percentages or parity rates: What happens after someone finds you on an OTA?
The Same Conversation, Different Year
I've been listening to the hotel-OTA dynamic for over 25 years, initially as an event agency procurement leader negotiating rates on behalf of corporate clients, then as co-founder of a hospitality tech company trying to help hotels tell better stories.
The grievances are familiar, not least because OTAs charge 15-25% commission. They control an important element of the customer relationship, and they have marketing budgets hotels can't match. All true.
However, I've noticed that hotels often focus on the transaction they're losing rather than the opportunity they're missing.
In 2025, OTAs captured 61% of bookings for independent properties, which was up from the prior year. In Europe, that figure reaches 77%. There is a clear trend here and that’s a dependency on OTAs, which isn't decreasing for most hotels. The dependency is increasing.
Yet in that same data, there's something else that stands out, and that’s the significant percentage of travellers who discover hotels on OTAs but end up booking directly. It’s the billboard effect, where OTA listings drive awareness that ultimately converts elsewhere.
I don’t think the real question is whether OTAs are good or bad, it's whether hotels are set up to capture the value they create.
The Conversion Gap Nobody Talks About
When I sat on hotel advisory boards years ago, the most consistent complaint wasn't about OTA (or even event agency) commissions, it was always about conversion rates from third-party channels.
Hotels reported that business conversion from event agencies sat at an average of 5-8%. That's an abysmal stat, which hasn’t improved in 25 years. It means for every 100 enquiries that come through intermediaries, only 5-8 become confirmed bookings. The cost of servicing the other 92-95 enquiries with proposal writing, site visits arranged, and all the negotiations conducted is borne by the hotel with no return.
I suspect the same dynamic exists with OTA-driven enquiries, just in a different form. Hotels spend resources responding to rate requests, managing availability, handling cancellations, but how many track what happens to the guests who found them on Booking.com but didn't end up booking there?
There are conversion gaps that nobody talks about. That isn’t the conversion from enquiry to booking, but the conversion from initial discovery to relationship.
What Hotels Say vs. What Hotels Do
I've observed a pattern across decades: hotels articulate sophisticated strategies but revert to familiar habits under pressure.
When occupancy is strong, hotels talk about reducing OTA dependency, building direct relationships, investing in brand. However, when occupancy declines, they turn back to the channels that deliver volume, regardless of the margin erosion.
Post-pandemic, I watched this happen time-after-time. Hotels that had been experimenting with direct booking strategies reverted to what I call "spray and pray", pumping their inventory into every channel, competing on rate, hoping that the metrics would turn more positive.
The irony is that the pandemic had actually accelerated direct booking trends with more travellers wanting direct relationships with properties. They wanted flexibility that OTAs couldn't always provide. Hotels had an opening, but many didn't take it.
The Real Competition Isn't Who You Think
The point that often gets lost in the OTA debate is that the real competition for guest attention isn't between hotels and OTAs, it's between the experiences.
A World Tourism Alliance survey found that travellers are most interested in destination cities (51%) and hotels (17%) before they travel. The rest of their attention goes to transportation, airlines, and entertainment options.
Hotels aren't just competing against each other or against OTAs because they're competing against everything else a traveller might do with their attention and budget.
This should reframe the OTA question entirely and move the debate away from commission rates because that isn’t the real problem. The key issue is whether hotels are giving travellers a reason to care, and a reason to seek them out directly rather than treating accommodation as a commodity to be price-compared.
OTAs win when hotels are interchangeable. Hotels win when they're not.
The Question That Matters
So here's the question hotels should be asking:
"If a traveller discovers us on an OTA, what happens next?"
Not: "How do we get them off the OTA?"
Not: "How do we match the OTA's marketing spend?"
Not: "How do we negotiate better commission rates?"
But: "What is it about our property, our story, our experience that would make someone want a direct relationship with us?"
If you don't have a good answer to that question, the OTA commission isn't your problem, it's a symptom of something much bigger.
The Storytelling Gap
Hotels own something OTAs never can, and that’s the experience itself. The story of the property, and the connection to place are critical motivators that are intertwined with human moments that make a stay memorable.
However, most hotel websites are functional at best. They’re booking engines wrapped in stock photography. They answer the question "Can I book a room?" but they rarely answer the question, "Why should I care about this place?"
Former Booking.com CEO Darren Huston made a revealing comment years ago: only 2% of Booking.com customers stay at the same hotel twice. That's partly because travellers explore different destinations but it's also because the OTA relationship is transactional. There's no emotional connection to the property.
Hotels that build that connection by utilising storytelling, developed through content and through experiences — that extend beyond the room — have something to offer that OTAs can't replicate. But building it requires investment that many hotels are reluctant to make, maybe because the OTA model (whilst seemingly expensive) is tried and tested. But, does it always deliver when you need it to?
Where Does This Leaves Us?
I don't have a simple answer to the OTA question. The dynamics are complex, and what works for a global chain doesn't work for an independent boutique property.
But I do think the conversation needs to shift away from commission rates and parity clauses, and towards a more fundamental question of what makes a hotel worth seeking out.
The hotels that figure this out won't eliminate OTA dependency overnight, but they will start building something more valuable, which is a direct relationship with guests who chose them, not just booked them.
That's the question worth asking.
Alan Newton has spent 25 years working across hotels, event agencies, and hospitality technology. He advises hotel groups and hospitality businesses on distribution strategy and market positioning.