Direct Bookings vs OTA: 2025 EU Report

[EXAMPLE TRANSCRIPT — This is placeholder text for NKMS-120 scaffolding. Replace with the real webinar transcript once the recording is available.]

Ivana Petrović: Welcome everyone to today’s session on direct bookings versus OTAs in the EU market. We looked at data from properties using Nokumo across Croatia, Slovenia, Austria, and Germany.

Ivana Petrović: The first trend we see is that commission-heavy OTAs still dominate top-of-funnel discovery, but direct bookings carry a meaningfully higher net margin once cancellation rates and payment costs are factored in.

Ivana Petrović: Properties that actively promote direct booking perks — such as flexible cancellation, loyalty credits, or complimentary late check-out — are narrowing the OTA gap by roughly 12 percentage points on average.

Ivana Petrović: We also see that rate parity remains a challenge. When the same room is priced lower on an OTA, direct conversion collapses. A simple rate-check workflow inside your PMS prevents this.

Ivana Petrović: If you take one action this quarter, audit your three highest-volume OTAs against your direct-booking engine and close any price gaps first. Everything else builds from there.