Connect once. Drive direct bookings at scale.
Your hotel clients urgently want to drive more direct bookings. Whether via traditional search or new and emerging AI platforms. DirectBooker gives your whole portfolio a place in ChatGPT, Claude and traditional search through a single integration, using the feeds you already produce, and sends every booking to your clients' own direct channels.
Available in ChatGPT and Claude · #2 in Claude's connector recommendations for hotel search · ~1M properties · Six of the ten biggest hotel chains signed · Connectivity partners around the world
Why connectivity providers partner with DirectBooker
Answer your clients' AI question. Hotels know search is moving to AI, and they're asking their technology partners what to do about it. DirectBooker gives you a ready answer, without building and maintaining your own connections to every AI platform.
Lower your clients' distribution costs. OTA commissions typically run 15-25%. DirectBooker's commission is up to 5x lower, charged only on completed stays, with no setup fees or subscriptions.
Reuse what you already have. DirectBooker works with the feeds you already send to Google Hotels and metasearch. There's no new data model to build.
Strengthen the direct channel you power. Every booking goes to your clients' own booking engine, so the traffic flows through the systems you provide.
Minimal ongoing work. Once you're connected, we manage the relationships and technical changes across search and AI platforms. New platforms are added for your hotels automatically, and any future feed additions are agreed with you in advance.
How DirectBooker works with your system
You share standard feeds. We prefer Google Hotels format: ARI in Pull or Pull with Hints, and Hotel List XML for property data. We can also work with other metasearch formats and direct APIs.
Hotels opt in. Hotels on your platform join individually, in bulk, or through a default channel you manage.
We cache and serve. DirectBooker caches and normalizes the data so search and AI platforms can query it at scale, absorbing exploratory traffic before it reaches your systems.
Platforms show your hotels. When travelers search in ChatGPT, Claude or Google, your clients' properties appear with accurate direct rates, perks and their own content.
Travelers book direct. Every result links to the hotel's booking page with dates and guests filled in, with your tracking parameters intact.
Commission on completed stays. We contract with you and invoice through you, so your hotels don't need a separate agreement with DirectBooker.
For supported feed formats, delivery modes and setup details, see how hotels connect to DirectBooker.
Why hotels need aggregation
Travelers start with a destination, not a hotel name. Whether they search on Google or ask an AI assistant, the first question is "Where should I stay in Lisbon?", and they expect a full set of options to compare. No single hotel, and no single provider's portfolio, can answer that alone.
Aggregators can, which is why OTAs and metasearch sites have long held the most prominent spots in traditional search. In the EU, Google has gone a step further in its response to the Digital Markets Act: top organic placements are now open only to aggregators. AI search is following the same pattern, because AI platforms can't query thousands of individual hotel systems, or dozens of provider systems, for every broad search.
DirectBooker brings the advantages of aggregation to hotels. Working with connectivity providers around the world, we give search and AI platforms one comprehensive source of direct rates, and send every traveler back to the hotel's own channel.
DirectBooker vs OTAs, for your clients
| . | Traditional OTAs | DirectBooker |
|---|---|---|
| Commission rate | 10-25% | 3-5x lower commissions |
| Direct and member rates | Not shown | Prominently featured |
| Guest relationship | Owned by OTAs | Owned by the hotel |
| Business model | Competes with direct | Grows the direct channel |
| Traditional OTAs | DirectBooker |
|---|---|
| Commission rate | |
| 10-25% | 3-5x lower commissions |
| Direct and member rates | |
| Not shown | Prominently featured |
| Guest relationship | |
| Owned by OTAs | Owned by the hotel |
| Business model | |
| Competes with direct | Grows the direct channel |
The shift to AI search is happening now. Talk to us about partnering.
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Frequently Asked Questions
No. You build the infrastructure that powers hotels' direct channels. DirectBooker is a supplier-aligned aggregator that sends travelers into those channels. We never take a booking, process a payment or become the merchant of record.
We prefer Google Hotels format: ARI feeds in Pull or Pull with Hints, plus Hotel List XML for property data, since most providers already support them. We can also work with other metasearch formats and direct API connections. If you currently support only Push for Google, talk to us about options.
With existing Google Hotels feeds, typically a few weeks. New feed formats take a little longer.
However suits your platform: individually, in bulk, or as a default channel you manage. Once you're connected, just send us newly opted in hotels as part of the next Hotel List and pricing data refresh.
We sign one agreement with you and invoice through you, so your hotels don't need individual contracts with DirectBooker. Commission applies only to completed stays, with no setup fees or subscriptions.
Each booking link passes briefly through DirectBooker so we can log the click, then goes straight to the hotel's booking page with UTM, affiliate or IATA codes intact. The hotel, through your systems, is the source of record for every booking.
AI platforms generate far more exploratory queries than bookings. DirectBooker caches aggressively and answers broad searches from that cache, so your systems aren't hit with every speculative query.
No, it's complementary. Broad discovery is answered from DirectBooker's cache. Once a traveler narrows in on a specific property, DirectBooker can pass their question to the hotel's or your own MCP server for live rates and property-specific answers, with our cache as the fallback.
To give travelers complete answers, DirectBooker covers about 1 million hotels worldwide. Where a hotel or its provider hasn't yet integrated with us, we show publicly available direct rates and link to the hotel's own website. There's no commission unless a hotel opts in through a connected provider.
Without an integration, we can show only a single, lowest public rate. Integrating lets your hotels show their full range of options: member and other discounted direct rates, refundable and non-refundable rates, different room types, upgrades and packages, along with their own content and tracking codes.
Yes, and we recommend it. Discounted direct rates are highly desirable for travelers and will increase engagement. We believe a logged-in, one-to-one AI conversation works more like a closed user group than a public listing, so showing fenced rates there should not conflict with rate parity. Agreements vary, so hotels should check their own contracts.
We match hotels to what the traveler asks for: dates, price, location and amenities. When several hotels fit, we aim to highlight those offering more value for booking direct: better direct rates, direct-booking perks, accurate rates and availability, and rich content. Our ranking is independent of commission. AI platforms may re-rank results using their own criteria.
Yes. DirectBooker is non-exclusive.
They face the same problem that made OTAs dominant. Hotel systems aren't built for thousands of exploratory queries, and maintaining separate connections to every hotel and provider isn't practical. AI platforms need one efficient, cached source. DirectBooker is that source, and it's aligned with hotels.
Minimal. Once integrated, we handle search and AI platform relationships and technical changes across ChatGPT, Claude and new platforms as they come on. As we launch new features, we may propose adding content to your feeds to enrich hotel listings and increase engagement. Any additions are discussed and agreed with you first.
We run lean infrastructure: no call centers, no payment handling, no customer service operation. Our team built hotel search at Google Travel and Tripadvisor, and DirectBooker is designed to run efficiently at internet scale.
DirectBooker handles discovery and sends travelers to the hotel to book. As agentic booking grows, we're working on open standards for that hand-off, from discovery to the hotel's own booking channel or MCP, including ways to protect rate integrity. Connectivity partners have a central role in shaping it.
To comply with the DMA, Google added a placement at the top of EU hotel searches that only aggregators, mostly OTAs and metasearch sites, can appear in. Individual hotels can't. The European Commission is also in discussions with Google about applying the same principles to AI Overviews and AI Mode. DirectBooker is an aggregator that sends travelers back to the hotel's own channel, giving your clients a route into placements they can't reach on their own.
