OTA -- Online Travel Agency

OTA -- Online Travel Agency -- refers to booking platforms like Booking.com, Expedia, or HRS. They aggregate inventory, generate reach, and charge commission for it -- typically between 15% and 20% of the room rate.

OTAs are not the problem. Uncontrolled OTA dependency is.

What we see in practice: A 65-room city hotel pulls 73% of its bookings through OTAs at 15% commission. Rooms revenue per year: EUR 1,070,000. The commission lands at around EUR 117,000 per year. That is more than one full-time position, qualified, with vacation and social charges. Few properties see it in those terms, because commission never shows up as an expense. It comes as a revenue reduction: silent, automatic, every month. What OTA share makes commercial sense is a strategic question. It should be answered deliberately, not arrived at by habit.