The two cost structures
| Marketplace-delivered booking | Direct booking | |
|---|---|---|
| Channel cost | Commission/booking fee per departure (varies by platform and programme) | Payment processing only |
| At scale | Grows with every booking, every year | Fixed: website + booking system + payment fees |
| Client relationship | The platform owns the client communication | You own the record, the inbox, the return trip |
| Upsells & repeat business | Belong to the channel | Yours to earn |
Do one honest number for your company: trips delivered by marketplaces last year × average trip value × your commission/fee band. That recurring figure is the real budget available for a better direct machine. For a sense of how these fees are structured, Bókun publishes 1–1.5% booking fees on its paid plans[1] (plus the marketplace’s own commission where relevant); stay-channel commission works the same way — charged per completed booking, varying by programme[2].
What a direct channel actually requires
- A website that plans trips: a planner widget visitors use — dates, destinations, stays, live pricing — not a "contact us" form.
- Something to sell instantly: published packages with real prices, for clients who don’t want a custom quote.
- Fast follow-up: structured enquiries, quotes and proposal variants within hours, not days.
- Easy money: deposit links and M-Pesa/card payments in the proposal — not bank-detail ping-pong.
- The operations behind it: documents, calendar, balances — so the booking is run, not just received.
When marketplaces are still worth it
- Filling shoulder season and discovering new source markets — marketplaces are discovery engines.
- New operators without (yet) the marketing engine to fill departures direct.
- Last-minute seats on a departure that would otherwise go empty.
The strategy we see work: keep marketplaces for reach, win the clients who already found you. Every client who searches your company name, lands on your site, plans their trip in your widget and pays a deposit in one flow is a commission-free departure. That flow — widget, packages, proposals, M-Pesa — is exactly what TravelBookingWidgets is, and the free plan makes the experiment cheap.