You don’t have to choose between Viator’s reach and your own margin. Here’s how to grow direct bookings while keeping the discovery channel that’s still bringing travellers in.
The commission numbers covered in our Viator and GetYourGuide commission breakdown make a strong case for growing direct bookings. What they don’t make a case for is leaving OTAs altogether, and our guide on whether you should delist from Viator covers why that’s usually the wrong move for most operators.
The good news is you don’t have to choose. Growing direct bookings mostly means winning the travellers who were already going to book somewhere, repeat guests, referrals, people who found you on Viator and then searched your name, rather than competing with Viator for brand-new discovery. The two channels can grow side by side.
A star rating with an actual review count next to it (4.9 · 214 reviews) is processed almost instantly, well before anyone reads your copy. It works as a fast, familiar proxy for quality. A vague claim like "highly rated" without a number reads as evasive, because if the number were good, you'd show it.
Travellers can spot stock photography almost as quickly as they spot a star rating, and it has the opposite effect: a polished stranger in a studio-lit boat or vehicle signals a business hiding behind a template. Your own guides, your own vehicle, your own past guests doing the actual tour reads as real, even when the photo isn't perfectly lit.
"Unforgettable adventures await" could belong to any tour company on earth. A headline that names the actual place, the actual experience, or the actual thing that makes you different signals a real, specific operation rather than a generic template someone filled in.
For anything involving physical activity, wildlife, water or vehicles, a visible mention of guide qualifications, safety certification, or licensing does real work in the first few seconds, because it answers the unspoken question every cautious traveller is quietly asking: is this actually safe.
Years in operation, tours run, or guests hosted are simple, honest numbers that do a surprising amount of trust-building work, particularly for travellers who are naturally wary of newer or less established-looking operators. "Running tours in the Winelands since 2014" says more in six words than a paragraph of marketing copy.
Trust signals only matter if there's an obvious next step once they've worked. A booking button or a direct contact option, visible without scrolling, converts the trust you've just built into an action, rather than leaving a convinced visitor to go hunting for how to actually proceed.
“Above the fold has room for maybe four or five things. Every one of them should be doing trust-building work, not decoration.”
We'll review your site as a first-time visitor would see it and show you exactly what's missing above the fold, free, no obligation.
Operators sometimes hold back on improving their own site out of a vague worry that it will somehow hurt their OTA relationship or visibility. In practice, a better website doesn’t reduce what an OTA sends you, it just captures more of what was going direct-adjacent anyway. Track the ratio of direct to OTA bookings over a season rather than watching for OTA volume to drop, since that’s rarely the number that actually moves.
Pick the two actions from the list above that are weakest on your current site and start there rather than trying to do all six at once. If you’re not sure which two, our website audit and growth strategy service is built to answer exactly that question.
Yes, and for most operators this is the better approach. Growing direct bookings and staying on OTAs are not mutually exclusive, since the goal is changing the ratio between the two channels over time, not eliminating one of them.
Yes, and for most operators this is the better approach. Growing direct bookings and staying on OTAs are not mutually exclusive, since the goal is changing the ratio between the two channels over time, not eliminating one of them.
Not directly. A better website mainly captures travellers who were already going to book somewhere, whether that's a repeat guest, a referral, or someone who found you on an OTA and then searched your name. It rarely reduces the discovery-driven bookings an OTA brings in on its own.
Making sure past guests and anyone who searches your business name directly can book easily on your own site, with visible pricing and a fast flow, tends to move the fastest, since it targets travellers who are already looking for you specifically.
Most operators see early movement within one to two seasons, since it depends on both website and SEO improvements taking effect and enough bookings cycling through to notice the change in ratio.
Book a free 30-minute strategy call. We'll look at your current OTA mix and website and show you where to focus first.
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