Case study · 2024

Cutting OTA commission by shifting 38% of bookings direct

A seven-property resort group was paying 18–22% commission on nearly every reservation. We built a direct booking engine faster than the OTA alternative and connected it to their property management system, and direct share went from 9% to 38% in a year.

Client: Backwater Collection (resort group, Kerala & UAE)
Sector: Travel & Hospitality
Duration: 5 months

Travel & Hospitality

Backwater Collection (resort group, Kerala & UAE)

Laravel Vue.js Redis PostgreSQL AWS

38%

of bookings direct, up from 9%

1.4s

median availability search on 4G

₹2.1 Cr

annual commission avoided

overbookings since channel sync went live

The challenge

Where things stood

Seven properties across Kerala and the UAE were taking 91% of reservations through online travel agents. Each booking cost 18–22% in commission and delivered no guest contact details, making repeat business almost impossible to build. The existing website took eleven seconds to show availability, and rates were updated manually across three channels, producing regular overbooking and rate-parity complaints.

Our approach

What we did about it

We started by timing the competition. The OTA booking flow took four steps and under two seconds to show availability; the property's own site took eleven seconds and seven steps. That gap, not marketing, was the reason guests booked elsewhere.

Availability and pricing were moved into a cached read model refreshed by the property management system, so the search response no longer waited on a slow third-party API. The booking flow was rebuilt to three steps with saved guest details and regional payment methods.

A channel manager integration replaced the manual rate updates, and a best-rate guarantee was enforced technically by comparing published OTA rates daily and alerting on parity breaks.

What we delivered

The system, in parts

Built with

Laravel Vue.js Redis PostgreSQL AWS Stripe PayTabs

Booking engine with sub-second availability search across seven properties

Two-way integration with the property management system and channel manager

Multi-currency pricing with AED, INR, USD, GBP and EUR

Packages and upsells not available through OTA channels

Abandoned-booking recovery by email and WhatsApp

Guest portal for amendments, add-ons and pre-arrival requests

We had been told for years that we could not compete with the booking sites on our own website. It turned out we simply had a slower website. The difference in commission has funded two new properties.

Group Revenue Director, Backwater Collection

Services used