How To Get More Direct Bookings in 2025 - Tour And Hospitality Operators Guide

With the cost of doing business in Australia continuing to sky-rocket in Australia, there’s never been a bigger appetite for tourism operators to increase their share of direct bookings, as hefty commission fees from Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) continue to erode margins.

There’s no denying that direct bookings are the avenue to higher profit margins and a direct relationship with the guest, which in turn, unlocks the opportunity to generate more direct bookings into the future.

But in this increasingly fragmented marketing landscape, how do you drive more direct bookings for your business in 2025? This post covers four essential and actionable strategies that will see more direct bookings coming your way before you can say ‘OT-Yay’.

A website is to your business, what a fishing line is to an angler - the crucial element for luring and hooking your catch. The quality of your setup also determines the scale of your haul. The challenge you face when it comes to securing your own haul of direct bookings, is that the fishing trawlers, the OTAs, relentlessly continue to harvest nearby waters.

With this in mind, the aim with your website is to be better and more user-friendly than an OTA listing page. There are several areas you may pay attention to in order to strive towards this:

• Mobile-First Design: Most travelers book on their phones. Your site must be fast, responsive, and easy to navigate on a small screen.
• Seamless Booking Process: The booking engine should be simple and intuitive, requiring minimal clicks. Showcase a clear calendar, transparent pricing with no hidden fees and secure payment options.
• Compelling Visuals: High-quality photos and videos are non-negotiable. Visuals sell the experience before the guest even arrives.

Attracting potential customers to your website before they even think of searching on an OTA is the next vital step for securing direct bookings. For most tourism operators, the most efficient and effective method of achieving this is by building authority and trust through content marketing and SEO. The additional benefit of adopting these tactics is that they are largely evergreen in terms of their impact - in other words, for the efforts invested now, the benefits should be felt for many years to come.

Continuing with the angling analogy, what we are talking about here is selecting the right baits for your desired catch, and once carefully threaded onto your fishing hook, casting your line into the right spot to attract and secure your catch. You can achieve this by:

• Value-Driven Blog & SEO: Create blog posts that add value to your target audience’s journey in some way, such as "Top 10 Things to Do in [Your City]" or "A 3-Day Family Itinerary." This helps you rank on Google for keywords travelers are using, driving organic traffic directly to your site.
• Engage on Social Media: Talk about using platforms like Instagram or TikTok to showcase authentic, behind-the-scenes content and user-generated photos. This builds a community and allows you to link directly to your booking page.
• Email Marketing: The power of building an email list should not be under-estimated. Encourage sign-ups to send exclusive offers and newsletters, prompting past guests and potential leads to book directly for their next trip.

OTAs use all marketing tricks in the book, but being the operator you can provide incentives to ‘Book Direct’ that simply cannot be matched by a major corporation. The trick is to be more personal, as this is not something that can be achieved at the scale of OTAs, giving your potential customers a clear and compelling reason to bypass the OTAs and book with you. The following are some examples of how can achieve this:

• Offer Exclusive Perks: Provide a clear ‘Book Direct Advantage’. This may be:
  • Discount - Such as 10% off, still providing higher margin when compared to OTA commissions
  • Bonus ticket - Buy 3, get one free!
  • Free upgrade - Get the VIP treatment on a standard purchase Complimentary refreshment - A bottle of water, a glass of sparkling. It’s simple yet effective
  • Souvenir photograph - If photography is part of your offering, this could be a huge incentive with a small outlay
  • Take-home gift or memento - Branded merchandise such as magnets or plush toys can leave a lasting impression in your customers’ home
• Highlight the Benefits: Ensure these perks are prominently displayed on your website's homepage, listing pages and booking pages so visitors immediately see the value of booking directly.

A beautiful website is essential, but what then happens when a potential guest from the UK is inspired to call your Surfers Paradise number in their afternoon? For you, it's the middle of the night. A missed call almost always means a lost booking, as that motivated traveller will simply call the next operator on their list or book instantly on an OTA.

Then there’s times, possibly a daily occurrence, that your main phone line is left unanswered while you tend to more pressing matters, often resulting in a handful of missed phone calls that are never to be heard from again. And of course, the after hours calls. Unfortunately statistics show that 44% of these callers won’t call back, meaning more customers opting for for third party booking websites or worse still, a competitor.

In 2025, it’s vital that every lead is captured by implementing a 24/7 phone answering service. With AI, it is now possible to have a virtual receptionist that is always available to take your calls, no matter the time, situation or number of calls in the queue. Better yet, by adopting an innovative system like Chaty, your friendly custom AI-powered phone agent can process a booking and even take payment over the phone, while you concentrate on operations.

A person who makes the effort to call is a high-intent lead ready to spend money - whatever you do, don't let them go to voicemail, as your competitor won’t.

The days of letting the OTA trawlers harvest your waters are over. By upgrading your fishing rig with a powerful website, casting it in the right spots with smart SEO, and using irresistible 'book direct' bait, you're perfectly positioned to land a bigger haul of profitable bookings in 2025. But all that hard work is for nothing if you aren't there to reel in the catch. Don't let your most valuable leads be the 'ones that got away' due to a simple missed call. Ensure you have a first mate ready to answer the call 24/7, turning every ring into a potential booking with Chaty.