Mark Simpson’s 2026 YouTube tutorial argues hosts should reduce reliance on Airbnb and other OTAs by building direct-booking channels. He claims the approach can increase bookings by ~30% and raise revenue by ~20%, and reports having shared it with over 2,000 hosts who generated >$1B in bookings over 10 years. The video outlines five practical steps: give guests a reason to book direct (better rates/discounts), collect guest contact data (Google pre-arrival form), import data into a CRM, run retargeting (email/SMS/Meta ads), and convert one stay into repeat business (post-checkout messages and referral incentives). A short case study ("Sarah’s coastal cottage") illustrates the shift from OTA dependence to majority direct bookings.
Questions this video answers
Approximately 30%.
About 20% more.
Over 2,000 short-term rental owners.
Over $1 billion in bookings over the last 10 years.
Usually between 15.5% and up to 30%.
Chapters
The booking strategy that Airbnb doesn't want you to know about. It's a hidden approach that can increase your bookings by 30% and make you 20% more money. We've shared this with over 2,000 short term rental owners, and together they've generated over $1 billion in bookings over the last 10 years. And in this video, I'm going to show you exactly why relying on Airbnb is a terrible long term strategy and what every host should be doing in 2026 to finally take control and get more direct bookings. Airbnb sometimes feels like the easy button. One listing gives you instant exposure and bookings can come rolling in. Well, that convenience comes at a cost, one that eats away at your profit quietly and relentlessly. And most of you don't realize this. The online travel agency commissions usually take between 15.5%, sometimes going up to 30%. That's not the worst part, because Airbnb controls how visible your property is. The algorithm, the policies, the rules, and you know, usually they change it overnight and it can leave you feeling powerless. And here's the part that hurts the most. When a guest books you through Airbnb, they're not actually your guest because you don't get the email now, you barely get even the phone number. So it means that there's no relationship, no opportunities to potentially market them for repeat stays. So here's the question. Do you really want your income tied to a platform you don't control? Or do you think it might be time to build a booking system where guests are actually come to you instead of Airbnb booking.com and VRBO? I've helped thousands of hosts do exactly this. So here are five steps you need to follow to take back control and start shifting bookings away from the OTAs so you can keep far more of your bottom line, develop relationships with your guests, but most importantly, build your business on your own land. You've got to give a reason for a guest to book. When somebody books with you instead of Airbnb, you have to have a crystal clear reason to do so. Now, for example, in the past we've said things like save on your service charge fee. But Obviously now, in 2026, for the majority of listings on Airbnb, there is no guest service charge because you, as the host are paying that 15.5% commission. So we have to be clever here. You can put best rates when you book direct because obviously on your diet booking website, you can Undercut Airbnb by 5, 10, say 15% so that gives that reason for that guest to book with you directly. In your description, in your pictures, in your bio, leave subtle hints on how they can find you directly and subtle hints on how they can book of you direct. What you then got to do is once you get the booking is you have got to get the data. Even if a guest book review via Airbnb, you have an opportunity right now to get their direct data. A simple thing that we have coached our two 2000 hosts to do is to set up a simple Google form. That Google form you will then give to the guest via the automation to fill in. You've got to give them a reason to do so. One that copy that we've been given to a lot of people is to make your check in as smooth as possible. Please fill in this pre arrival form. Super simple guest will do it. You send it up to 24 hours after the booking is made. And for you the benefits is that you can get the first name, last name, email, phone number and any other data that you want. Now when you do that consistently, you've then got to take that Google form data and put it into your CRM. If you don't know what a CRM is, it's basically a place to store your emails. So you then can do email sending. But also a very good CRM gives you the ability to do retargeting. Retargeting is something that so many people don't do, but it's a powerful tool to do is when a guest comes and stays with you or even if a guest signs up to your email newsletter, you can contact them via meta ads, via email, via SMS to keep in contact with them. When you retarget, you are consistently getting in front of your future potential guest. Those hosts that do it consistently, that is sending an email once a week, sending an SMS once a month, doing retargeted ads campaigns on meta, maybe again spending 50 to $100 a month budget on that. You'll be consistently in the mind and the eye of your future potential guests so they can come back and book review. Obviously if you can combine that with sending them to a very good direct booking website, you are much more likely to get a direct booking than if a guest going to book back on Airbnb. And the final thing that I want to leave you with is turn one stay into many. If a guest has a good time with you and if they are ever going to come back to that town or that city or that location, they are more likely to choose you over somebody new because they know like love and trust you. When you give a guest a good stay they will go home to their friends group and they will rave and shout about you to their WhatsApp groups, their sports groups, to their school groups, to the co workers and on social media as well. So again, how can you turn that one stay into many states? By tapping into that person coming back and their social network. The best way to do this is to ask have in your post checkout automation a simple message that just says hey, we loved having you as a guest. Thank you so much for leaving it in a tidy state. We would love for you to come back again. Please let us know when you're coming back and we will sort you a special discount or whatever you want to call it. You can also have a nap message just as a P.S. if anybody is as cool as you that you know but would like to come and stay with us, please recommend us. If anybody books and mentioned you when they did the booking, we will give you X in return. And X could be cold hard cash, Amazon vouchers, whatever you want to be. So those five things that I've gone through in this video are what you can put into practice to start getting more direct bookings today. And this isn't theory, this works. Take Sarah's coastal cottage. When she first came to us, she was 100% reliant on Airbnb and booking.com for her bookings until her listing disappeared for two weeks due to a glitch which meant that bookings vanished and rightfully so. Panic set in. With our help she put a very simple website together and promoted it through social medias and her email campaign. And she also did a few small ads. Six months later she was 5050 between Direct and OTA which meant that her revenue wasn't just recovering, it went up. And the cool thing is is that now she is at 80% direct. Now why is this? She kept more profit secured repeat guests and started doing extras in upsells. So I recommend that you start now. Pick one of these steps. Maybe it's building your website, maybe it's coming to boostly, maybe it's setting up your post day emails. I don't expect you to literally ditch Airbnb overnight, but if you can start shifting slowly, 10% dark bookings then quickly becomes 25, then it becomes 50 and before you know it 65% of your bookings are coming in from direct which means that you are building that business on your own land. And if you want help turning your Airbnb listing into a real business, then I encourage you to click on the link in the description below, book a call with the team and let's see how we can help you. And obviously, if you want more help and guidance on this, then click on this next video where we're going to dive deeper into these direct booking tactics.
