Knowledge
The platform brings the guest. And keeps them.
Booking portals are the start for many houses - reach in exchange for commission. The problem starts at the second contact: the data of the guest who has already been there sits with the portal. And the next stay costs commission again.
Updated: 22 August 2026
What dependency really costs
The commission is the visible bill: 15-25 % on every booking, permanently. The invisible one is the data: who booked when, what they liked, when they return - the platform knows, the house does not. Without that data there is no regular-guest care, and every stay is bought anew.
Add the cancellation risk: platform guests keep comparing and cancel at 21.8 %, twice as often as direct bookers at 10.6 %. The occupancy in the system is not the one in the house.
The same pattern in restaurants
Reservation portals charge per reservation and do not know the table plan. A no-show destroys around 70 % of the seat's value (OpenTable Show-Up Data; GroupMenus Deposit Benchmarks) - and the portal does not care about the guest who does not come. The guest data for addressing regulars sits with the provider again.
The way back - without leaving the platform
Nobody has to switch the portal off. The maths flips at the second contact:
- Own booking path on your own site - widget, own domain, own data.
- Every platform guest gets a reason during the stay to book direct next time.
- A CRM that recognises repeat guests and reaches out at the right time.
- Advertising only where direct stays cheaper after ad cost than the commission.
Common questions
At what volume does an own system pay off?
That depends on bookings per month, average booking value and commission rate. We calculate it before anyone builds anything - at Stiftskulinarium St. Peter, 8,000 reservations a month now run commission-free through mP Table.Do I lose reach if I sell less through portals?
No, if the portal stays as a shop window. The lever is the second contact: whoever came once books direct - the portal keeps bringing new guests.
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