The Booking Channel You Do Not Control

A third of your bookings arrive through somebody else's platform. They send people, you pay a share, everybody is reasonably happy.

The commission is the part you can see. It is rarely the expensive part.

What you actually give up

The relationship. The guest booked with the platform, not with you. Next time they open the platform, not your page. ⚠️ You paid to acquire a customer for someone else, and you will pay again for the same person next month.

The data. Frequently you receive a name and a time and nothing else. No history, no preferences, no way to recognise a returning guest as returning.

The comparison. Your venue sits next to competitors, sorted by criteria you do not set. You are being priced against the room next door in a context you cannot influence.

The dependency. The higher the share, the less able you are to walk away — and platforms know their leverage precisely.

What to measure before deciding anything

Four numbers, and most venues have none of them:

Share of bookings by channel. The dependency number.

Repeat rate by channel. ⚠️ This is the one that matters. A platform guest who never returns costs you the commission every single visit. A platform guest who becomes a direct regular was worth acquiring once.

Spend per head by channel. Frequently differs more than people expect, in both directions.

Cost per acquired guest, including your own effort. Direct is not free — it costs marketing, a website, someone answering the phone.

The number that reframes it

Repeat rate.

If platform guests return directly, the platform is a genuine acquisition channel and the commission is a marketing cost with an end.

If they return through the platform every time, it is a rental — you are paying a share of revenue in perpetuity for a guest you have already served ten times.

⚠️ Those two situations look identical on the invoice and are completely different businesses.

What is worth doing

Convert on the visit, not afterwards. The moment the guest is in the room is the only moment you have an advantage. A reason to book directly next time, given in person, works far better than any later email.

⚠️ Read your platform agreement before doing anything on this. Many prohibit specific forms of diversion, and the terms differ. This is a contract question for your counsel, not an operational decision.

Make direct genuinely easier. ⚠️ The most common reason guests use a platform is that the venue's own booking is worse — slow, unanswered, or absent. Fixing that is entirely within your control and is the change that actually moves the share.

Record platform guests as guests. Even with partial data. A name and a date is enough to recognise them on the third visit, which is the visit where the relationship becomes possible.

What not to do

Do not leave abruptly. The share does not transfer; a large part of it disappears. Reduce dependency over quarters, not in one decision.

Do not compete on the platform's terms. Discounting your way up a ranking trains the platform's audience to expect it and does not build anything you keep.

Three to hold

Repeat rate, platform versus direct. The number that tells you which business you are in.

Share of bookings by channel, quarterly. The dependency trend.

Direct booking completion rate. ⚠️ If your own path is worse, the platform share is a symptom rather than a cause.

Where the record has to sit

If platform bookings arrive as a list and never become guest records, the repeat rate by channel cannot be computed — and without it, every conversation about commission is conducted without the one number that would settle it.

tasteck keeps bookings and guests on one record regardless of where the booking came from, so do these guests come back, and how is answerable.

You know what the commission costs. The question is whether you are buying a customer or renting one.