The limits of Booking and Airbnb in building a hotel brand

Booking and Airbnb dependency

When the platform becomes the shop window, the brand fades away

Booking platforms have provided an immediate answer to a concrete problem: filling rooms quickly, without having to build an audience, payment technology, a booking engine or an acquisition strategy yourself. In return, they capture a significant share of the value created. The point is not to demonise Booking or Airbnb: these channels can be useful, sometimes indispensable depending on the season, the destination or the property’s commercial maturity. The problem arises when the platform becomes the main shop window, the main reassurance argument and the main point of contact. In that case, the hotel no longer sells a brand experience; it sells a line in a catalogue.

Building a hotel brand is not just having a logo and a few photos. It is about controlling a story (promise, positioning, atmosphere), managing the customer relationship (before, during, after), and turning each stay into reputation and repeat-purchase capital. Yet platforms favour their own brand, their own user experience and their own conversion objectives. Your property becomes a product among others—comparable, filterable, interchangeable.

The battle for attention: the interface isn’t yours

On Booking as on Airbnb, the interface is optimised to maximise conversion… for the benefit of the platform. This results in standardised listings, an information hierarchy that isn’t yours, and constant competition. Even if you invest in great photos and carefully written copy, you control neither the layout, nor how elements appear on mobile, nor the order of sections, nor the presence of modules that encourage comparison (other similar properties, crossed-out prices, better-value offers, etc.).

Clearly, you are not building a world: you are filling in fields. For a hotel brand, it’s a glass ceiling. You can be excellent, but you remain locked into a mould identical to your neighbour’s.

Price comparison: the silent erosion of positioning

A strong brand makes it possible to justify a price, because it sells a perception: an emotion, a level of service, a distinctiveness. Platforms, on the other hand, make price omnipresent. Filters highlight the best deals, rate calendars instantly expose variations, and the user is encouraged to open multiple tabs. The result is mechanical: even a differentiating property gets sucked into a logic of numerical comparison.

This pressure is not limited to commissions. It also translates into concessions: promotions to climb the results, more flexible terms to reduce friction, cancellation policies aligned with the market norm. Little by little, the brand becomes less legible, because it adapts to the platform’s framework rather than imposing its own rules.

The brand story fragmented: you tell it, but the platform comments

On platforms, your brand story is systematically framed by other stories: the overall rating, reviews, categories, badges, sometimes automated messages (high demand, only 1 room left, cheaper than usual). Even when these elements are useful to the traveller, they shift the decision from the realm of narration (your story) to that of standardised social proof (their metrics).

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Reviews are important, but on platforms they become a product in their own right: they feed an algorithm that decides your visibility. Your brand is no longer built solely through the quality of the experience; it also depends on the volume, cadence and nature of reviews, as well as the ability to activate internal levers (programmes, discounts, availability) to stay performant.

The customer relationship confiscated: you host, but you don’t own the connection

To build a brand, you need to know your customer, understand what brings them back, and create relationship rituals: personalised messages, loyalty benefits, targeted offers, tailored content, post-stay follow-up. On Booking and Airbnb, the relationship is largely mediated. You communicate in a messaging system that isn’t yours, with rules that can change. Access to data is limited, segmentation is complicated, and some marketing initiatives are restricted or ineffective.

In practice, this means that even if you deliver an excellent experience, you struggle to turn that satisfaction into direct repeat bookings. The platform captures intent, captures future search, and positions itself as the default booking reflex. For the hotel, it’s a hidden cost: you pay again and again to reach the same customer.

The algorithm as manager: unstable and unpredictable visibility

Visibility on platforms depends on a multitude of factors: conversion rate, price competitiveness, availability, response speed, cancellations, historical performance, participation in programmes, etc. A brand, by contrast, needs continuity: an audience that returns, a community that recommends, word-of-mouth that amplifies. The algorithm, on the contrary, introduces volatility.

A change in platform policy, a weighting adjustment, the arrival of new competitors, a spike in demand in an area… and your positioning can shift without you having changed your product. This is a key point: the brand is a durable asset; platform ranking is a rented, unstable asset.

Concrete limits for a differentiating identity

Design, atmosphere, editorial: the experience begins before arrival

Strong hotel brands create an atmosphere even before check-in: tone of voice in the copy, staging of spaces, showcasing a way of life, local content, guides, thematic pages. On a platform, this richness runs up against format constraints. You can describe, but you can’t orchestrate. Yet the difference between a nice property and a desirable brand often comes down to the staging.

Offers and packages: the platform simplifies, sometimes too much

A brand is strengthened when it offers coherent packages: romantic getaway, gastronomic experience, wellness break, local partnerships, upgrades, surprises, options with high perceived value. On platforms, upselling is limited and rarely aligned with your margin and experience strategy. You end up selling mainly a night, when you could be selling a stay.

Loyalty: hard to build a club in a shopping centre

Platforms’ loyalty programmes favour… the platform. They create repeat business, but that repeat business benefits the distributor’s ecosystem first. For the hotel, the challenge is to turn a first visit into a habit, into a relationship. Without a robust direct channel, loyalty feels like a race with a handicap: you invest in the experience, but the memory of the relationship is stored elsewhere.

Airbnb and Booking: different approaches, the same consequence for the brand

Booking and Airbnb don’t work in the same way: one has historically been focused on hotels and large-scale booking, the other on homestays that have gradually become a massive marketplace. Yet for building a hotel brand, the consequence converges: the property adapts to the platform’s framework, not the other way around.

To explore this confrontation and the blind spots often ignored, you can consult this external article: AirBnB vs Hotel: Competition and Truth. It helps to put the competition back into a more nuanced reality, useful for deciding what to delegate to platforms… and what to take back in hand.

The real cost: commissions, yes, but above all dilution of the brand asset

The commission is visible, easy to measure, often painful. But the heaviest cost is sometimes invisible: the gradual dilution of your brand asset. When the majority of customers discover you and book you via a third party, your own brand awareness grows more slowly. Your direct traffic remains low. Your ability to launch something new (signature room, concept, service) depends on how the platform displays it. Even your photos can be reused in contexts where your visual identity gets lost.

Hotel Web Design is the 100% web agency dedicated to the hotel industry, supporting you in all aspects of digital communication: booking websites, natural search engine optimisation specialising in the hotel industry, Google Ads and Google Hotel Ads, social networking campaigns, graphic charters and logos.

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In periods of high demand, this dependence may seem less problematic, because rooms sell. But it is often the moment when you should invest in regaining control: turning the visibility spike into durable assets (opt-in emails, direct traffic, content, brand reputation) rather than letting it dissipate into the feed.

Why proof isn’t enough: ratings and reviews don’t replace a promise

Platforms push a proof logic: ratings, badges, rankings, volumes of reviews. It’s useful, but incomplete. A brand cannot be reduced to an average. Two properties can have 8,8/10 and offer totally different worlds. The brand exists precisely to reduce uncertainty in ways other than numbers: it allows the customer to imagine themselves there, to choose according to their values, their style, their need of the moment.

When your acquisition depends mainly on a rating and a price, you’re on fragile ground. A run of negative reviews, an operational incident, or simply a poorly calibrated expectation can immediately weigh on conversion. A strong brand cushions these shocks, because it also rests on a relationship, a community, a preference.

Regaining control: the direct website as centre of gravity

Breaking free of dependence doesn’t happen by abruptly leaving Booking or Airbnb. It happens by shifting the centre of gravity: the platform becomes one acquisition channel among others, and your website becomes the reference. Concretely, this means a site that isn’t a brochure, but a sales and brand tool: clear identity, offer pages, content, local SEO, a smooth booking engine, reassurance, payment, automations, and a capture strategy (newsletter, benefits, codes, etc.).

On this point, a good reference point is the internal article Hotel website vs what your site can do that platforms will never do, which highlights the concrete levers a direct channel can activate, beyond simple online presence.

Turn direct booking into a brand experience

A high-performing website is not only used to reduce commissions. It is used to express your uniqueness, to tell the story of your spaces and your promise, to guide the visitor towards the offer that suits them, and to create a connection even before arrival. It is also where you can build pages dedicated to specific intents (romantic weekend, business stay, event, surprise, etc.), with tailored messaging and visuals.

For example, if your concept is built around an intimate, staged experience, inspirations can help structure the presentation and conversion journeys: Examples of websites for a love room. The aim is not to copy a style, but to understand how a niche turns its identity into bookings.

Reduce dependency without losing volume: a gradual strategy

1) Clarify the direct advantage (without breaking the rules)

Your direct channel must offer a clear reason to book: better-suited conditions, included options, flexibility, thoughtful touches, upgrade subject to availability, breakfast, late check-out, or simply a more reassuring booking experience. The goal is for the customer to understand that your website is the best gateway into your world.

2) Optimise the site to convert, not just to look nice

Mobile speed, contextualised photos, proof (reviews, labels, press), FAQ, clear policies, payment reassurance, offer scenarios, and a frictionless booking engine: these are the details that tip a hesitant visitor. When the site converts, you can gradually reduce your dependence on platforms without drying up your occupancy.

For a results-oriented approach, you can read How to reduce commissions thanks to a high-performing website. The key idea: a direct-to-guest strategy is managed like a sales funnel, not like a simple institutional presence.

3) Put a real repeat-purchase mechanism in place

After the stay, a satisfied customer must be able to come back without going through a platform again. That requires controlled touchpoints: post-stay email, a gentle incentive to book direct next time, seasonal offers, useful content, and, if possible, an in-house loyalty programme (even a simple one) that values the relationship.

The role of a partner: technology, content, and strategy combined

Taking back control requires a combination that is rarely available in-house: market understanding, technical expertise (SEO, performance, tracking), brand sense (design, tone, photography), and a conversion culture (UX, offers, testing). That is often where a specialist agency becomes an accelerator, by avoiding decorative redesigns with no business impact.

To see how this can be organised in a structured way, this internal article is a good entry point: How a web agency helps a hotel regain control of its sales.

Airbnb: useful for filling up, limited for establishing a hotel brand

Airbnb can be a relevant channel for certain types of accommodation, certain client segments, or to test a concept. But for a hotel brand, it has a structural limitation: the Airbnb experience is designed for the marketplace, not for your brand architecture. You may gain visibility there, but you will struggle to build a lasting asset comparable to a well-developed direct website (content, SEO, repeat business, identity, control of the booking journey).

If you are asking yourself Can Airbnb replace my direct channel?, this internal article provides a very concrete answer: Why it does not replace a real direct booking website.

Conclusion: platforms are channels, not foundations

Booking and Airbnb can serve a useful purpose: generating volume, capturing existing demand, smoothing out a season, accelerating a launch. But they quickly show their limits when the goal is to build a hotel brand: reduced control over the experience, standardisation, price comparison, mediated customer relationship, unstable visibility, and difficulty turning satisfaction into direct repeat bookings.

The most robust strategy rarely consists of choosing a side. It consists of rebalancing: using platforms as tactical levers, while building a proprietary asset that reflects you (website, content, CRM, loyalty, offers). It is this asset that, over time, helps protect your margins, your positioning, and above all your ability to exist other than as just another listing in a list.

If you want to quickly assess the priorities to regain control (website, engine, SEO, offers, conversion), you can request Your quote in 5 minutes.