An Online Travel Agency (OTA) is a marketplace that aggregates accommodation from many properties and sells it to travellers, handling the search, the booking, and often the payment. In return, the OTA charges the property a commission on every reservation — typically around 15–20% for an independent hotel, depending on the platform, market, and agreement.
OTAs bring genuine reach: large marketing budgets, brand recognition, and traffic an independent property can't match alone. The trade-off is cost and control — the commission on every stay, rate-parity expectations, and a guest relationship that largely belongs to the platform rather than the hotel.
Why it matters for direct booking
For an independent hotel, OTAs are useful for discovery but expensive as the only channel. A direct booking website is the counterweight: it captures the guests who'd rather book with you — including those who found you on an OTA and then searched your name — without the per-booking commission.