Compete with the big brands. Keep every guest.
Independent hotels have long faced a hard choice: pay OTAs 15-25% for visibility, or struggle to be found when travelers search a destination. Travelers now start planning in AI platforms like ChatGPT and Claude, as well as traditional search. DirectBooker puts independent hotels in those comparisons alongside the major brands, with your rates, your story and your perks, and sends every booking to your own website.
Available in ChatGPT and Claude · #2 in Claude's connector recommendations for hotel search · ~1M properties, including 900K+ independent hotels · Up to 5x lower commission than OTAs
Tell your story
OTAs fit every hotel into the same template. DirectBooker gives search and AI platforms the details that make you worth the trip: the chef behind your restaurant, the local artists on your walls, the history of your building, your neighborhood partnerships and sustainability work.
Increase your revenue
OTA commissions typically run 15-25%. DirectBooker's commission is up to 5x lower, and you pay only on completed stays: no setup fees, no subscription. Every booking lands on your website, where you keep the upsell and the guest.
Delight every guest
About 70% of travelers prefer to book direct. DirectBooker shows them your direct-only rates and perks, like flexible cancellation, a welcome drink or early check-in, and sends them straight to you. Guests arrive as your customers, not an OTA's.
How independent hotels join
Independent hotels join DirectBooker through the systems they already use: their booking engine, channel manager or PMS. We're signed with connectivity partners around the world, and more are integrating each month.
If your provider is already connected, ask your account rep to opt your hotel in. It can be instant, or take effect at the next data refresh, typically within one to two weeks.
If your provider isn't connected yet:
Tell us which system you use, so we can check where it is in our pipeline.
Ask your provider to integrate with DirectBooker. Demand from hotels often moves integrations up in their roadmap.
Share our integration overview with them.
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 "What are the best boutique hotels in Savannah?", and they expect a full set of options to compare. No single hotel can answer that on its own.
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 for every broad search. That matters most for independents, who make up more than 40% of US hotels and over 60% in Europe.
DirectBooker brings the advantages of aggregation to hotels. We give search and AI platforms one comprehensive source of direct rates across independent hotels and brands, and send every traveler back to the hotel's own website.
How it works
Your provider shares your feeds. Your booking engine or channel manager sends your property details, rates and availability.
We prepare your data. DirectBooker caches and normalizes your data so search and AI platforms can query it at scale.
Platforms show your hotel. When travelers search in ChatGPT, Claude or Google, your property appears with accurate direct rates, perks and your own story.
Travelers book on your site. Every result links to your booking page with dates and guests already filled in.
You pay on completed stays. Bookings are tracked through your connectivity provider, and commission applies only to stays that happen.
How you'll appear
A traveler asks: "Find me a boutique hotel in Charleston with a great restaurant and local character." Your hotel can appear with:
Accurate direct rates for their dates
What makes you different: an award-winning chef, a rooftop bar with harbor views, locally sourced breakfast
Your direct-booking perks: flexible cancellation, a complimentary wine hour, early check-in
A link to your booking page with their dates and guests filled in
DirectBooker vs OTAs
| . | Traditional OTAs | DirectBooker |
|---|---|---|
| Commission | 15-25% | Up to 5x lower |
| Direct rates and perks | Not shown | Prominently featured |
| Guest relationship | Owned by the OTA | Owned by you |
| Business model | Competes with you | Grows your direct channel |
| Traditional OTAs | DirectBooker |
|---|---|
| Commission | |
| 15-25% | Up to 5x lower |
| Direct rates and perks | |
| Not shown | Prominently featured |
| Guest relationship | |
| Owned by the OTA | Owned by you |
| Business model | |
| Competes with you | Grows your direct channel |
AI search is a chance for independent hotels to compete on equal footing. Ask us whether your booking engine or channel manager is connected.
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Frequently Asked Questions
DirectBooker is a supplier-aligned aggregator, not an OTA. We never become the merchant of record, never take payment and never own the guest relationship. Every booking happens on your own website.
No. Your booking engine, channel manager or PMS handles the integration, using feeds it already manages for other channels.
If your provider is already connected, joining is usually just a matter of opting in. That can happen instantly or at the next data refresh, typically within one to two weeks. Your provider's account rep can confirm the details. If your provider isn't connected yet, timing depends on when they integrate, and asking them directly is the fastest way to speed it up.
Basic property information (name, address, photos, amenities), room availability and rates, and anything that makes booking direct worthwhile: special offers, perks, packages. Your provider can usually reuse data it already sends to Google and metasearch.
Our connectivity partners include Blastness, Cendyn, cultuzz, DerbySoft, eviivo, GraceSoft, Mirai, Paraty Tech, Rainmaker, Reseliva, RMS, Roiback, Shiji and SiteMinder, with more integrating each month.
Don't see yours? Ask us about your provider and we'll tell you where it stands.
Yes, and we recommend it. Direct-only rates and member rates are often the single biggest reason to book direct. 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 check your own contracts.
We format your content so AI platforms can use it well: structuring it, turning paragraphs into lists, summarizing long descriptions and resizing images. We never change facts, write descriptions that aren't based on your content, generate images with AI, create offers, change policies, alter reviews, or change your URLs.
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 and understanding of the specific traveler's needs.
Not fully. We give AI platforms structured data and clear guidance, but each platform writes its own response. We can't guarantee exact wording or order.
To give travelers complete answers, DirectBooker covers about 1 million hotels worldwide. Where a hotel or its connectivity 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 you opt in to DirectBooker through your connectivity provider.
Without an integration, we can show only a single, lowest public rate. Joining lets you show travelers your full range of options: member and other discounted direct rates, refundable and non-refundable rates, different room types, upgrades and packages. You also provide your own content and tracking codes. Richer content and stronger direct offers help travelers choose your hotel, and help it stand out in results.
Each booking link passes briefly through DirectBooker so we can log the click, then goes straight to your booking page with your tracking codes intact for attribution. You and your connectivity provider act as the source of record for every booking.
Yes. DirectBooker is non-exclusive, so you can adjust your channel mix over time.
Those partnerships bring OTA limitations into AI search: commission-eligible inventory only, no direct-only rates and no direct-booking perks. DirectBooker makes sure AI platforms can show your own rates and benefits alongside other options.
They face the same problem that made OTAs dominant. Hotel systems aren't built for thousands of exploratory queries, and maintaining separate connections to hundreds of thousands of independent hotels isn't practical. AI platforms need one efficient, cached source. DirectBooker is that source, and it's aligned with hotels.
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.
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 your own website, giving independent hotels a route into placements they can't reach on their own.
