Holiday cottage or B&B website: getting direct bookings

Booking platforms are a great showcase, but every night they sell earns them a commission. Many travellers, once they have spotted a cottage, search for its name on Google to see whether they can book directly. If your website is clear and reassuring, part of those bookings comes back to you in full.

What travellers check

• Rooms: honest photos, capacity, beds, bathroom and view, room by room.
• Price: per night and per season, minimum stay and what is included (breakfast, cleaning, linen).
• Availability: an up-to-date calendar, or they go back to the platform.
• Terms: check-in and check-out, cancellation, deposit, pets.
• The area: what there is to do nearby, often why people choose one place over another.

A calendar that prices the stay

Travellers want the total price before writing. A calendar that shows free dates and prices the stay, season by season, answers that without a single message. Keep it current, or sync it with your other channels to avoid double bookings.

Tourist tax and rating

State whether the tourist tax is included or added, according to your local rules. If your property is rated or labelled, show it: travellers know these quality marks.

Reassuring before a direct booking

Booking off-platform takes some trust. Show guest reviews, a precise address, a phone number, readable cancellation terms and a well-known payment method. An "about us" page with your faces often makes the difference.

Bringing past guests back

The website is also where regulars return. Offer a newsletter announcing the season's availability, or a loyalty rate reserved for direct bookings.

Mistakes that send people back to the platform

• A neglected calendar: a traveller who sees free dates, writes in and learns everything is booked will not trust you twice.
• Prices without the total: cleaning, linen and tourist tax added at the end feel like a trap.
• Over-edited photos: the gap with reality is paid for in bad reviews.
• No clear payment method: state the deposit, the balance and accepted methods before booking.
• A slow website: photos of several megabytes each ruin the experience on mobile, while many travellers search from their phone, sometimes on the road.

Before the season, check

Update rates and the calendar for the whole season, reread the cancellation terms, retake a photo or two if a room has changed, and test a booking request end to end, from a phone. Also check that the page shows up when you type the cottage's name into Google: if it does not, the business profile and the home page title are the first things to review. Finally, ask a friend to book through the website without help: wherever they hesitate is where a direct booking would be lost.

To go faster

Our holiday cottage and B&B template brings all of this together: room pages with galleries, filters, an availability calendar that prices the stay by season, an area page and an enquiry form, in HTML, React and as a WordPress theme.