Website development for hotels and apartments

Because every booking through a platform carries a commission that takes a serious share of the earning, and the guest stays theirs rather than yours. A direct booking keeps that amount with you and gives you the guest details, so you can offer them next season. We are not saying you should drop the platforms — they bring new guests. But a returning guest who already knows the property has no reason to come through a middleman.

You can, and most properties do exactly that. The combination is more honest than a promise that you will leave the platforms straight away: they still bring the guest who does not know you, while your site brings back the one who has already stayed. Over time the balance shifts in your favour, because every satisfied guest books directly next time. The aim is not a break with platforms but not depending only on them.

That is the first thing to settle when you sell through platforms and your own site at once. We agree where the calendar of record lives and how availability is kept in step, either by connecting to the tool you already use or by clearly splitting the units. The right answer depends on what you already run, so it is decided at the start, not after the first double booking in high season.

With a direct booking the guest details stay in your system, because the guest booked with you. That means you can send the confirmation, arrival instructions and later an offer for the new season, if they agreed to it. Through the platforms that contact usually stays with the intermediary. How you may use those details is something to agree with your legal adviser — we build the system, we do not write your privacy policy.

As standard we do Montenegrin and English, with the same content and the same booking flow. If your guests come mainly from one market, that language is added too — usually Russian or German. What matters is that everything a guest reads before deciding is translated: unit descriptions, cancellation terms, prices and the confirmation. A half-translated page looks careless and usually sends the guest back to the platform, where the description is complete.

It depends on the number of units and unit types, on how ready your photos and price lists are, how many languages you want and whether online payment is connected. A property with a few rooms and finished material starts quickly; a large property with layered seasonal prices and cancellation terms needs more discussion. That is why the schedule goes into the quote only once we see the scope, and then we keep to it.

The site and the platforms work over the same availability calendar, so the same unit is never sold twice. Exchanging availability between an own system and the sales channels is ordinary practice in accommodation: calendars are either shared through a calendar feed, or kept in step by a tool that handles the channels. Which of the two applies is judged from how the property already operates. The platforms stay in play as long as the property wants them.

A channel manager is a tool that keeps calendars and availability in step across several sales channels at once. When a booking lands on one channel, that date is closed on all the others straight away, with nothing entered by hand. It is used when a property sells in several places at the same time, because keeping calendars by hand does not survive a full season. Which tool suits you is judged from what the property already runs, and that is agreed at the start.

They do. Your own site with booking does not touch your platform profile or the reviews you have collected over the years — these are separate channels with separate accounts, and the platform has no reason to change anything because you started taking direct bookings. Nothing is lost and nothing is deleted. The profile carries on exactly as before, with the same rating and the same visibility, while your site simply becomes one more place where a guest can book.