There's one trend that's likely to keep on increasing this year in travel - more and more of us will book short-term rental accommodation and most of this will be through an OTA (online travel agency). And so, if you own rental properties or manage holiday homes, getting listed on the right OTA will make sure you can advertise to the largest volume of potential guests and boost your income.
What is an OTA?
An online marketplace that sells travel related products - in our case, accommodation. As an owner of a holiday let, you can list your property on these marketplaces to be discovered by millions of guests. Many OTAs sell just accommodation whereas some will sell the whole mix of services involved in booking a trip (flights, vehicle rental, rooms, insurance etc).
We previously wrote about the key criteria when choosing and comparing OTAs to list your short term rental / holiday let, and now we’re going to review and compare the major booking platforms available in the UK to help you decide. There are 100s more that we could have featured but they are tailored towards particular sub-segments (for example, the premium and luxury space), and we think they deserve their own special post.
One industry wide report about online accommodation bookings in 2022 notes that over half of guests now stick to their preferred website/platform when booking accommodation. Therefore, it's never been more important to choose the OTA(s) you list on wisely.
Officially the most visited accommodation OTA in the UK according to data website, SimilarWeb, so we have to start here. It’s a behemoth in the industry and has most types of properties now on the platform in the UK. It’s worth noting that almost 70% of its stock is hotels, but it also has some of the largest availability of serviced apartments, hostels, guest houses and BnBs in the UK.
Pros: With the largest traffic of potential guests, it’s very user centric for guests to use the platform and it practically pioneered the free cancellation feature many now expect. If you want to be seen, especially if you’re just setting up, this can be the place to start. A couple of the other major OTA providers in the UK also partner with Booking.com such as Laterooms.com proving how much sway it has in the industry. It also has a specialist platform for business bookings and combined with its high stock of serviced apartments, we think it is particularly well suited for corporate stays.
Cons: While remarkably successful, it wears many hats in the industry and we're not convinced the jack of all trades can provide the master experience for owners of self-contained properties and homestays. And why should it since so much of its offering is for hotels. For example, customer support can feel a chore as you get bounced around various departments. Its integration with your own PMS (property management system) can also be more cumbersome, and it may lack the intimate relationship with guests of a true homestay that you can find on specialist platforms for self catered accommodation.
Cost/fees: on average, expect to forfeit at least 15% of your revenue towards the platform but for more features such as utilising their payment services, it can go up to 20%+.
The grandpa of the sharing economy. Airbnb is a household name around the world and is incredibly popular in the UK with over 600,000 properties available at the last count in 2021. So entrenched it is in our culture in 2023 that the term Airbnb investor is now synonymous with the short term rental / serviced apartment operator. As an OTA, it has a focus on properties that feel personal - after all, it started out as a place to share your own home. And it propelled the peer to peer model where hosts and guests could review each other, hopefully leading to better quality outcomes for all. And it really is the millenials' choice of booking provider - according to similarweb's stats, 1/3 of potential guests are 25-34 years of age, and 2/3 are younger than 45!
Pros: in contrast to booking.com, the majority of properties are homestays and self-catered accommodation. As a result of the focus, we think the platform is much easier to use for STR/SA hosts and the customer support more helpful. Further, the guest vetting feature can be a big draw so you decide which guests to stay in your properties. It is particularly well suited for hosts who really enjoy curating quality, unique experiences and it actively encourages quirky and unusual properties too. We also love Aircover - their market leading insurance product that can step in should there be any damages by guests.
Cons: Whether this a disadvantage or not depends on who you speak to: the Superhost. It's a coveted label awarded to the creme of the host community who benefit from greater promotions and thus more bookings (check out our tips on how to be an Airbnb superhost). However, while great to have it can be hard to achieve in the first place and then even tougher to maintain - bad reviews and cancellations can have a longstanding impact.
Furthermore, as the largest of its type in the short term rental economy, there have been some concerns about the impact of STR/SA on local housing markets and communities, and some cities have introduced restrictions on Airbnb listings such as London with its 90 day short let limit.
Cost/fees: Airbnb charges approx 15-18% of the total booking value. How that fee is split is up to to you - you can pay 3% and have the guest pay the balance, or you can choose to eat the whole fee to keep your pricing on the public platform attractively low.
Vrbo (formerly Homeaway, and part of Expedia)
If you’re looking to attract families, groups or those seeking a bit more luxury, Vrbo might be the OTA for you. It specialises in entire homes, villas, cabins, and cottages that are generally larger and more upscale. While it doesn't yet have the same site traffic of Airbnb in the UK, it is a growing presence.
Pros: Vrbo is a great option for homeowners with larger properties wanting to rent out the whole property. It's also owned by Expedia, which means that it has a large marketing budget and can get your property in front of a lot of eyes. Being part of Expedia - which is very popular in the US - means you can gain access to the brands of the group to list your property too.
Cons: You have to rent the whole property out, so not ideal if you want to turn your spare rooms into an income generator. And unlike booking.com, its cancellation feature is not as user friendly on the guest-side with more terms attached. Additionally, Vrbo plays second fiddle for now to Airbnb in terms of site visitors and number of listings in the UK.
Cost/fees: Vrbo offers an annual subscription fee which starts at around £299 per year. It also charges a commission on bookings, which can range from 5% to 15% depending on the type of property and the location.
TripAdvisor is a popular OTA platform, particularly for travellers who want to research and plan their trips. It's a platform that provides a range of options for accommodations, from hotels to vacation rentals. And with TripAdvisor (and vice versa), you can automatically be enrolled onto Holidaylettings.co.uk - also one of the single most visited OTAs In the UK, Both platforms are particularly known for their selection of holiday cottages in the UK, and Holidaylettings in particular does have a large proportion of more luxury listings.
Pros: TripAdvisor is a trusted name in the travel industry and has a large user base of travellers who use the platform to plan their trips. We love the fact that you can also utilise their sister band in Holidaylettings.co.uk too to open up your audience further. TA will certainly attract the tourist type as they may be using the site to see other attractions in the area.
Cons: TripAdvisor itself doesn't offer as much support for hosts as some other platforms as it functions more as a metasearch OTA, so you may need to rely more on your own resources to manage your property and guests. That said, Holidaylettings has all the features of the OTA you would expect around customer support.
Cost/fees: TripAdvisor and Holidaylettings have the same fee structure for hosts - you can choose either their pay-per-booking model which starts from 3%, or you can choose to pay annually for each property you list. And the rest of the fees are built into the price for the guests so overall it will equate to roughly 15-20%.
Sykes Cottages is a UK-based OTA with a focus on holiday cottages, with over 17,500 properties across the UK and Ireland. What is more British and Irish than the cottage! It is a popular choice for those looking for a traditional experience, with a wide range of options available in stunning rural and coastal locations.
Pros: Sykes is known for its high-quality properties and personalised customer service, with a team of local experts available to provide support throughout the booking process and stay. And guests clearly love it too - it has over 100,000 reviews on Trustpilot with a rating of 4.6, head and shoulders above the rest in the UK. We also love the fact that they offer a full property management service so they can take on the entire process of renting out your home/properties on your behalf (albeit for extra fees).
Cons: The platform's primary focus on holiday cottages means that you need to have a suitable rural property. Cottages in popular countryside and coastal areas come at a premium on these islands which can be a high barrier for potential new entrants to purchase, but if you are able to then it should provide a steady income for the investment.
Cost/fees: Sykes Cottages charges a commission fee of 20-25% depending on the booking value, with the option to pay an additional fee for premium listing features.
Snaptrip (and its sister brands in the group) is a UK-based OTA that specialises in offering holiday homes and cottages throughout the country. It's part of the larger Snaptrip Group, which includes brands such as Last Minute Cottages, Dog Friendly Cottages and more. This means that Snaptrip offers a wide range of properties and all across the UK.
Pros: Like Sykes, we love that it's UK centric and that it offers a range of promotional tools to help hosts optimise their listings. It does have a particular focus on last-minute discounts and early-bird offers which may be appealing to you as a host. It also has a loyalty programme for repeat guests to encourage bookings. It has a strong trustpilot rating of 4.5 proving how much it is rated by the guests and hosts. And with 20 million visitors to its brand websites in the past year, it more than packs a punch against the larger players.
Cons: You'll need the right type of property for many of its brands such as cottages, and last minute discounts may not be the business model that works best for your business.
Cost/fees: Snaptrip charges hosts a commission rate of 12-15% per booking. However, hosts can choose to pay an additional fee for extra promotion of their listing, which could help increase visibility and bookings.
awaze group: cottages.com and Hoseasons
The awaze group is dedicated to vacation rentals in europe and 2 of their brands have some of the largest stock of properties in the UK. Hoseasons has been around for over 70 years and is a well-known OTA in the UK specializing in holiday parks, caravan parks and lodges. It has over 28,000 properties across the UK, many of which are located in some of the country's most picturesque locations. Cottages.com meanwhile gives Sykes Cottages a run for its money with its take on the quintessential British rural stay - it boasts over 22,000 properties to stay in the UK.
Pros: Hoseasons is the place to advertise cabins, mobile homes and lodges. Their feedback is fantastic - it has one of the highest customer ratings of holiday accommodation platforms on Trustpilot in the UK. For Cottages.com, we like how they use local letting agencies to help market your properties and thus more likely to attract the older guest (who may not utilise the services of OTAs). We also like their feature where you are paid before the guests actually arrive, which is in contrast to the larger players.
Cons: These platforms are for specialty properties so not for the majority of STR/SA investor who own urban homes. And while cottages.com is a major player in the rural travel sector like Sykes Cottages, neither compared as well against smaller, regional players in a recent Which! report.
Cost/fees: Fees are typically in the range of 20%. However, owners have the option to set their own prices and can also take advantage of promotional tools to increase their visibility on the platforms.
There you have it. Your guide to the major OTA and booking platforms for accommodation in the UK this year. It's worth stressing again that it can be common (and even prudent) to use multiple OTAs at the same time. If you do decide to utilise multiple to maximise your reach, explore the services of channel managers like TravelNest, Guesty for Hosts and Lodgify to make it as efficient as possible.
We'd love to know what OTAs you are currently using or which you plan to use as a result of reading this. Do any of these pros and cons resonate with your own direct experience on the platforms as hosts? Let us know in response so we can share with our STR/SA community. You can email us or get involved at the largest facebook community of UK Airbnb investors and holiday home owners.
And if you enjoyed this article from our blog, why not check out more useful tidbits for Airbnb hosts and investors:
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