Who Knows What Book Direct Means? Take A Guess and See If You Are Right!

So, what is your guess?  If you said order books and get them directly sent to you, you’d be wrong.  Amazon does that already!  If you aren’t in the hospitality industry, then there is a good chance you don’t know.  But I guarantee if you stay at B&B’s or hotels on your trips, your innkeeper or concierge probably tried to educate you.

In a nutshell, the definition of #BookDirect is this:

#BookDirect: verb – to book a room at any accommodation directly on the accommodations website instead of an OTA

What is an OTA?

OTA: noun – Online Travel Agent – For example: Expedia, Booking.com, Hotels.com, Trivago, etc.

Now your next question might be…”who cares where I book my room?”  Any innkeeper or hotel employee will tell you….

WE DO! AND YOU SHOULD TOO!

We’ve all seen the commercials for those OTA’s.  They can be funny…they can make you think you are saving money…they may even give you incentives when you book with them.  But..the one thing they aren’t telling you is that you are paying commissions to them for booking your room.  Essentially, they are a travel agent and you are paying more.

Being an innkeeper who is going into his 3rd season, it is amazing how many people think they are saving money booking with an OTA.  In the end, you are essentially paying a commission to the OTA anywhere from 10 to 20 percent over what you would have paid if you booked directly on the accommodations website.  Many accommodations may even hold back amenities (like free parking, free Wi-Fi, breakfast, etc) if you book via an OTA.

At this point you are probably wondering…what do you want me to do?  Great question!  What we want you to do is book directly with the accommodation you wish to stay at, either on the phone or website.  99.99% of the time you will always save booking directly.  And if for some odd chance it costs more to book directly, I’d bet the innkeeper or hotel employee you are talking to will charge you the lower price.

Join all of us innkeepers and hoteliers today, February 5th, 2020, and celebrate #BookDirect day!  It’s the one day a year we try as a group to educate our future guests to save money and book direct!  I could make this blog post longer giving you more details about why you should #BookDirect, but so many sites covered this already.  So for more information please visit https://www.bookdirect.education/.  And as always, please share this blog post with your friends!  We need to start spreading the word!

And to thank our blog readers, if you book directly on our website at www.windwardhouse.com and use the promo code BOOKDIRECT2020, you will save 20% on any 2 night or more future stay booked during the month of February 2020!