Direct Booking for Vacation Rentals: Break Free from Platform Fees

Airbnb takes 3-5% from hosts and charges guests 14-16% on top (effectively 15-20% per booking). VRBO charges either $699/year or 5% per booking. For a host with $100,000 in annual revenue across 3 properties, that's $15,000-$20,000 per year going to platforms whose support gets worse every year, whose policies change without warning, and who will always side with the guest when it matters most. And the fees only go up. Airbnb recently shifted more of its fee structure directly onto hosts. Use the calculator below to see exactly how much you're losing.

Here's what's happening right now: guests are increasingly using AI assistants to find and book travel. These agents don't browse Airbnb. They don't scroll through listings. They look for properties with structured data they can understand — pricing, availability, reviews, and property details in a format AI can read. Properties with this data get discovered and booked directly. Properties without it aren't ranked lower. They're invisible. Not "harder to find." Invisible. Your property doesn't exist in the digital economy. Not really. You have an Airbnb listing — which Airbnb owns. If they delete it, your digital existence vanishes overnight. lilo gives your property its own permanent identity — one that exists whether Airbnb does or not.

Google Vacation Rentals (GVR) shows vacation rentals directly in Google Search and Google Maps — no OTA middleman, no commission. Properties that appear on GVR get booked directly. The challenge: GVR requires structured property data in a specific format — pricing feeds, availability calendars, property details. Most hosts can't do this on their own because it requires an identity that Google's systems can understand. This is the gap. And it's the same gap that makes properties invisible to AI booking agents.

A direct booking channel needs four things: (1) Discoverability — a way for guests to find you outside platforms. Google VR, AI agent discovery, or your own website. Without this, direct booking is just a payment processor with no customers. (2) Payment processing — Stripe or Square to handle transactions. This is the easy part. (3) Booking management — confirmation emails, calendar sync, guest communication. (4) Protection — this is the part most hosts forget. Without a platform mediating, you need your own evidence collection, chargeback defense, and guest verification. A direct booking without protection is a direct invitation to chargeback fraud. More revenue, more responsibility. Both are real.

Direct bookings aren't a magic bullet. You lose the platform's audience, their guest screening (limited as it is), and their dispute mediation (inconsistent as it is). You gain: 0% commission on every direct booking. Direct guest relationships you actually own. Data ownership — your guest list, your booking history, your reputation. Independence from policy changes, algorithm shifts, and the next fee increase. The smartest approach: use platforms for discovery while building your direct channel in parallel. Don't deactivate your Airbnb account tomorrow. Start capturing 10% of bookings directly, then 25%, then 50%. Every direct booking is 15-20% more revenue. And once AI booking agents become the default way travelers find properties, the hosts with a digital identity will own the market. The ones still dependent on OTA listings will wonder what happened.