Every booking that comes in through Booking or Expedia loses 15 to 20 percent on the way, and the guest ends up on their customer list, not yours. Your own site does not replace the platforms: it uses them as a shop window and keeps the second booking. What it needs so people book there, and how to take payment without complicating your life.
A twenty-room hotel in Puerto Viejo or a lodge in Tortuguero gets most of its bookings today through Booking, Expedia or Airbnb. It works, it fills beds, and every booking leaves 15 to 20 percent on the way. For a hotel that bills enough to live on, a year of that commission is usually more than a website costs over several. And there is something worse than the commission: the guest who arrived through Booking is Booking's customer. Their email, their history and their next booking live over there.
This article is for anyone who runs a hotel, cabins, a lodge or a tour company in Costa Rica and wants a bigger share of bookings to come in directly. It is not a case against the platforms: they are the channel that brings the guest the first time, and few businesses can do without them. The question is what happens the second time, and with everyone who saw you on the platform and then looked you up by name.
What the platform does for you and what it does not
Booking gives you something that is very expensive to get on your own: being in front of millions of people who have already decided to travel and are comparing. For a new hotel, that is the channel that puts it on the map, and leaving it is not the point. What the platform does not do is set you apart. In its listing you are a square photo, a score and a price next to thirty others just like it, and the fight happens on the one field where the small property always loses: the rate.
Nor does it give the guest back. When someone who already stayed wants to return, the platform shows them your hotel next to the ones down the road and charges you again for a booking that person would have made with you directly if they had known how. That is what your own site fixes: not the first booking, but the second and the third.
People are already searching for you by name
It happens at every hotel and almost nobody measures it: someone sees your property on Booking, likes it, and before paying types the name into Google. They want more photos, to know whether there is a better deal booking direct, to read reviews that are not on the platform, to check that you really exist. What they find in those thirty seconds decides where they pay.
If what they find is the Booking listing again, a Facebook page last updated two years ago, or nothing, they go back to the platform and pay there. If they find a site with the same rooms, better photos, a clear rate and a button to book or write on WhatsApp, a good share of them book there. That search by name is the cheapest and best-qualified traffic a hotel will ever have, and it is the one most sites waste.
What the site needs so people book there
It does not need to be big. It needs to answer the questions the person has at that moment, in the order they have them:
- Real, current photos of every room type and of the place. The stock photo of a generic pool shows and costs trust; a well-lit room shot on a phone earns it.
- Rates by season and by room type, with what they include. A site that says "ask for price" sends the person back to Booking, which does state it.
- Availability, or the shortest way to ask about it. If you are not going to have a calendar, a WhatsApp button with the dates pre-filled covers most cases.
- How to get there, explained for someone who has never been: from the airport, from San José, by bus, by car, and the detail that changes everything on the Caribbean side, like the fact that Tortuguero is reached by boat.
- Clear policies: check-in and check-out times, cancellation, pets, children, deposit.
- A complete English version, not a half-translated one. On the Caribbean coast most guests are not Costa Rican, and a site that only exists in Spanish is talking to half the market.
And it has to load fast on mobile data, because the person is looking at it on a phone, often from another country or from the bus. A heavy site with a background video loses the booking before it shows the first photo.
Taking payment: three paths, from simplest to most complete
This is where most projects get stuck, because "booking engine" sounds expensive. There are three levels, and the right one is the one your operation can sustain, not the most impressive:
- WhatsApp and a deposit. The site shows rates and general availability, the person writes, you confirm and take an advance by SINPE Móvil or bank transfer, or through a card payment link if they are abroad. It is how most small hotels in the country work, and it holds up well until you reach a few bookings a day.
- A simple booking engine. A calendar on the site where the person picks dates, sees the price and pays by card. There are services billed monthly that plug into any site. It makes sense once volume grows and answering every WhatsApp at eleven at night stops being viable.
- A channel manager. A tool that syncs your site's calendar with Booking, Expedia and Airbnb at the same time, so a room sold on one is blocked on the others. It is the level any hotel selling on three channels at once needs, for one reason: avoiding overbooking, the most expensive mistake a hotel can make.
The mistake that keeps repeating is jumping to the third level without the second one sorted, or staying on the first when bookings are already being lost for not answering in time. A good project starts where you are today and leaves the next step ready.
Giving a reason to book direct, without breaking the contract
The person who found you on Booking needs a reason to switch to your site. The obvious one is price, and it is the one to handle with care: many platform contracts include parity clauses that restrict publishing a lower rate on your own site. Before announcing a discount, read yours.
What you can always do is offer something the platform does not: breakfast included, a pickup from the bus terminal, late check-out, a discounted tour, or simply the chance to choose the room and talk to someone who knows the place. For a traveller about to spend four nights somewhere they have never been, talking to a person is worth more than a small discount.
Tours and activities: the same problem on other platforms
Tour companies live the same story with Viator, GetYourGuide and the agencies that resell: the commission is higher than in hotels, and the customer who booked there often does not even know the name of the company that took them out on the canals. Here your own site has an even clearer role, because tours are searched by activity and by place: "chocolate tour in Puerto Viejo", "Tortuguero canals from Guápiles", "snorkelling in Cahuita".
The structure that works is one page per tour, not a list. Each with duration, what is included, what to bring, departure point, physical demand, price and how to book. It is exactly what the person is asking themselves and exactly what a platform listing has no room to explain. It is also the text AI assistants cite today when someone asks them for a three-day plan on the Caribbean coast.
Google: the listing, the map and the reviews
The site does not work alone. A good share of searches by name end up on the Google Business Profile listing, with the map, the photos and the reviews, and that listing has to be claimed, verified and linked to the booking page, not the homepage. For hotels, Google also shows booking links in its results, and your own site can appear there alongside the platforms if it has a connected booking engine.
Reviews count on both sides. Ask for them on Google and not only on Booking, because the Google ones are seen by whoever searches for you by name, which is precisely the person deciding where to book. A message the day after check-out, with the direct link, is enough.
Where to start
- Search for your hotel by name on Google from a phone, the way a guest would. What you see is what needs fixing first.
- Claim and complete your Google Business Profile, with photos and the right link.
- Decide which booking path you can sustain today: WhatsApp with a deposit, a simple engine or a channel manager.
- Build the site around that path: real photos, rates, how to get there, policies, full English.
- Give the guest a concrete reason to book direct that does not break your contract with the platforms.
- Measure. A site without measurement cannot tell you how many bookings it brought, and then there is no way to know whether it was worth it.
None of those steps means leaving Booking. The goal is for the platforms to keep bringing the new guest, and for everything else, the person who searched for you by name, the one who comes back, the one a friend recommended you to, to end up on your site and not paying commission on a booking that was already yours.
We work from Guápiles, at the gateway to the Caribbean coast, and we know the particulars of the area: the boat to Tortuguero, the guest who arrives by bus, the season that does not match the Pacific's. If you run a hotel or a tour company and want to know how many of your bookings could be coming in direct, write to us and we will go through it with your numbers on the table.
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