Direct bookings for apartments start with one habit: send the guests who already know you to your own website instead of back to a portal. A guest who stayed once and wants to return does not need a portal's search, only your free dates and a form. Every such booking skips the portal's commission.
This post covers why returning guests should book directly, what your own website needs to take a booking, how huttoro's website builder and booking flow do it, and how the portals and your site share one calendar.
See how huttoro builds a website with a booking form from your units and prices
Why returning guests should book directly
A portal earns its commission by bringing you a guest you did not have. For a guest who already stayed with you, that service is no longer needed, yet the commission is charged the same.
The portal stays useful for new guests, and nothing here asks you to leave it. What changes is the path for people who already have your name: a link in the check-out mail, or a line on a card in the flat.
What your own website needs to take a booking
A page with photos is not enough. To replace a message thread, the site has to do five things:
- Show availability for each unit, not only for the address.
- Show prices, including seasons and minimum stays.
- Offer a booking form that asks for a deposit or the full amount.
- Send a confirmation mail with the payment details.
- Collect the guest's contact details before arrival.
If any of the five is missing, the booking moves back into e-mail and you do by hand what the portal did.
How the huttoro website builder fills the site for you
The site is built from what you already entered: units, photos, prices, seasons and availability. You choose between a single page and a multi-page site, pick the colours and fonts, and decide which sections to show. Sections include the cover banner, rooms, gallery, prices with a calculator, availability, map, reservation form, contact and questions.
Before you can publish, the site needs an address, at least three photos, a property name and address, and an e-mail or phone number for the contact section. After publishing you can connect a domain you already own. If you have a website already, the booking form can be embedded into it instead.
One limit worth knowing: the buttons and labels of the site come in Czech and English, and everything you type stays in the language you typed it.
From the form to a confirmed booking
The guest picks a unit and dates. The form refuses dates that overlap a reservation or a block, including blocks imported from portals, and it checks again when the booking is sent. The guest sees the price with any discount code applied, then enters name, e-mail, phone, arrival time and requests.
Before sending, the guest sees the total and when payment is due. After sending, a confirmation page and a mail show the account number, the variable symbol, the deposit and the due date. The guest also gets a page of their own for that booking, without a login.
You choose per property whether the guest pays a deposit with a balance later, or everything upfront. The booking is confirmed when the first payment arrives, or when you confirm it yourself, and the guest receives a confirmation mail. A website booking that stays unpaid is released after 48 hours.
Card payments
You can add card payments by connecting your own Stripe account from the settings. It takes one button, and you sign in at Stripe, so no key is typed anywhere. The guest then gets a button to pay by card on the booking page, next to bank transfer.
The card charge runs on your account, so the money lands in your Stripe balance and goes on to your bank on Stripe's payout schedule. Stripe's own fee is between you and Stripe. The button appears only once the connection is active and the property has its payment terms saved.
Portals and your site share one calendar
The calendar in huttoro is the main one. A portal booking arrives as a block through the portal's iCal link, so your site stops offering those nights. A direct booking goes the other way: once confirmed, it appears in the link each portal reads.
The exchange is not instant. huttoro pulls portal calendars every 15 minutes, and portals read yours on their own schedule, so a short window remains. Setup in both directions is described in how to sync Airbnb and Booking.com calendars.
Summary
- Returning guests do not need the portal, and each direct booking skips its commission.
- A site needs unit availability, prices, a booking form with a deposit, a confirmation mail and the guest's details.
- huttoro fills the site from your units, photos and prices.
- A booking is confirmed on the first payment, and card payments run on your own Stripe account.
- Portals and your site read one calendar, with a short delay.
What to do now
- Pick the channel that reaches returning guests, such as the check-out mail, and add your site address to it.
- Set the deposit share and due days for each property, then publish the site.
- Connect your portal calendars so the site and the portals never sell the same night.
