Mark SimpsonHelping short-term rental hosts get the tools, tactics and training to grow direct bookings with confidence

The Untold Benefits of Direct Bookings: Take Control of Your Rentals!

19 Oct 2023 · 1 min

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0:57

A short-form transcript from a YouTube video (creator: Mark Simpson) explaining what direct bookings are and arguing for taking bookings in-house rather than relying on OTAs like Airbnb. The speaker defines direct bookings, cites his own site (neeksleeps.com built with Boostly) as an example, and gives a personal anecdote about Airbnb randomly shutting down hosts’ accounts—illustrating risks of depending solely on OTAs. The speaker notes he was previously hesitant but has shifted toward recommending direct bookings.

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So to sort of bring a little bit of context as to what direct bookings are. I mean, you know, I don't want to assume that everyone knows direct bookings is basically when you take your own bookings in house, meaning you aren't relying on the OTAs, the online travel agencies to take your bookings. Airbnb, vrbobooking.com Instead you are creating your own website. Mine, for example, is neeksleeps.com created by you guys over at Boostly. Thank you very much, Mark. So you go to neeksleeps.com you can actually book my short term rental properties, you can send an inquiry and actually pay me directly. And we basically cut out the middleman. That's the idea of direct booking. And for a very long time, I was pretty anti this, like, told a lot of people not to do it. Reason being is, on the surface, it's a little bit scarier to take this in house. It feels like you're incurring a lot of risk. But recently? Not recently, but within the last year, I remember that Airbnb started just shutting down random people's accounts for, you know, people in host camp. My students are like, hey, Airbnb shut down my listing and I have literally nobody to call. There's no phone number, nothing like that.