Hosts’ corner · Direct bookings
Growing direct bookings without leaving the platforms
What platforms forbid, what is still allowed, and five levers to bring travellers to you of their own accord.
You can grow direct bookings without leaving booking platforms, as long as you never divert a traveller who came through one of them. Airbnb forbids hosts from offering to book elsewhere, sharing contact details before a booking and charging anything outside the platform, on pain of suspension. Direct bookings are therefore built upstream: a name, a presence on Google and on independent websites, and travellers who find you on their own.
The temptation is familiar: a traveller writes to you on Airbnb, you slip them your number, and next time they will book direct. That is precisely what platforms watch for, and Airbnb has tightened its rules again.
What is forbidden
On Airbnb, hosts may not invite a traveller to book on another site or directly, nor promise a discount for doing so. They may not share a phone number, email address, social media account or link to their website in messages, photos or the description. All fees, including the deposit and cleaning, go through Airbnb. Contact details obtained during a stay must not be used for marketing. In serious or repeated cases, the listing can be removed and the account deactivated.
What is still allowed
Anything that happens outside the platform and does not target its travellers. A traveller who discovers you another way, or who searches for you by name of their own accord, can contact you and book directly. That is the billboard effect, and it is what you build on.
Five levers
- A name. “La Bergerie du Clos” can be searched for; “6-person house with pool” cannot. Use the same name everywhere.
- A Google Business Profile. A free profile, with photos, reviews and a link to your website, is often the first thing a traveller sees when typing your name.
- A website, even a simple one. A page with your photos, your availability and a way to contact you. No need for a payment module: an email address and a phone number are enough to start.
- Third-party pages that point to you. Tourist offices, quality labels, guides and commission-free networks: each one is another way in, which does not close if a platform changes its rules.
- Guests who came direct. They are your customers: you can contact them again for their next stay. That is how your share of direct bookings grows, year after year.
Keep the platforms
They fill the gaps, bring travellers from far away and feed your visibility. The goal is not to leave them, but to stop depending on just one.
What Gemlidays does about it
Gemlidays is a lever of the fourth kind: a page in your name, designed for Google and AI, that sends travellers to you, with no commission on your bookings.