Direct Sales Consulting Is Not About Traffic Growth in 2026

If your bucket has holes, more water doesn’t help. The same thing happens when you buy more traffic while your direct booking path leaks trust and clarity. You can double visits and still watch guests hesitate, call, ask the same questions, and then disappear. The waste just gets bigger, and the ad bill feels like punishment.

Owners in Halkidiki and Thessaloniki tell me the same story every season. “We ran Google Ads, we posted more, we even got featured somewhere, but direct bookings didn’t move.” You look at Analytics and you see numbers that should mean growth, yet the bank account doesn’t reflect it. That’s when you stop asking “How do we get more clicks?” and start asking “Where do the clicks go to die?”

The Greece-specific math: what “15% OTA commission” becomes after VAT, climate fee, and the cash-card payout

Let’s do a clean example with numbers that actually match Greece.

Assumptions (summer):

• Total price the guest pays: €100
• Accommodation VAT: 13% (calculated on €100, per this example)
• Climate resilience fee for short-term rentals (small Airbnb / up to 80 m²): €8 per night (Apr–Oct)
• OTA commission: 15% on the €100 headline price
• “Cash card / virtual card” payout: you must charge the OTA’s virtual card to get paid, so you pay your acquirer a typical card fee. Example: 2.5% (your real % varies)

Step 1 — VAT on the €100 total
VAT amount inside €100 at 13% = 100 × 13 / 113 = €11.50

Step 2 — OTA commission on €100
OTA commission (15%) = €15.00
Money the OTA sends you = 100 – 15 = €85.00

Step 3 — cost to “get your money” (virtual card charge)
Card charge fee (2.5% of €85) = €2.13
Money that actually lands in your account = 85 – 2.13 = €82.88

Step 4 — subtract taxes/fees you still owe
Climate resilience fee (summer) = €8.00
VAT owed (from Step 1) = €11.50

What is left in the hotelier’s hands (before running costs):
€82.88 – €11.50 – €8.00 = €63.38

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What % is the “15% OTA commission” compared to what you actually keep?
OTA commission / money left = €15.00 / €63.38 = 23.7%
If you include the cash-card charging cost as OTA-related leakage:
(€15.00 + €2.13) / €63.38 = 27.0%

And that’s before payroll, cleaning, laundry, utilities, maintenance, accounting, and rent/loan costs.

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Now compare the same booking as a direct sale

Same assumptions, same €100 guest payment, same VAT, same €8 climate fee.
The only difference is: no OTA commission, and you charge the guest directly.

Direct card processing cost (2.5% of €100) = €2.50
Money that lands in your account = 100 – 2.50 = €97.50
Subtract VAT (€11.50) and climate fee (€8.00):
€97.50 – €11.50 – €8.00 = €78.00

Difference in what’s left in your hands:
Direct leaves €78.00
OTA leaves €63.38
Direct leaves €14.62 more per night

As a percentage of what’s left in your hands:
Direct vs OTA uplift = (€78.00 / €63.38 – 1) = +23.1% more money left for the hotelier on the exact same €100 booking.

So, Direct sales… Pretty important, right?

Direct sales consulting in 2026 is about stopping leaks after the click

What this is for, and what it’s not for

This is for owners who already get some traffic and want to turn more of it into clean, trackable direct revenue. It’s for people who are tired of guessing, tired of “new campaigns” every week, and want a stable way to make decisions. It’s also for owners who can accept that the problem might be their own website flow, their own policies, or their own response process. If this feels uncomfortable, we are not for you.

It’s not for someone who wants a traffic growth story to tell himself. It’s not for someone who wants “branding” talk, moodboards, or vague awareness. It’s not for someone who insists on keeping three different people changing the site, the ads, and the booking settings daily while asking for a clean diagnosis. That usually ends in arguments, not results.

Why more traffic rarely fixes direct sales

Because most direct sales problems are not audience problems. They’re decision problems. Guests arrive with intent, then they hit friction, doubt, or risk, and they back out quietly. They don’t email to say “your cancellation policy scared me” or “your rooms look unclear” or “I didn’t trust the payment step.” They just go back to Booking.com where the path feels safer.

More traffic also hides the real issue because it creates noise. You get more enquiries that “just want info,” more phone calls that steal time, and more people who bounce because the page didn’t answer basic questions. You feel busy, but not paid. That’s a brutal place to be in July.

If you want a blunt reference point, look at how Google itself frames “micro-moments” and intent. People decide fast, and they decide based on confidence, not on your effort: https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/consumer-insights/consumer-trends/micro-moments/ . Direct sales lives or dies in those small decision points.

The real leak: trust, clarity, and the booking path

Trust is not a logo and it’s not a review widget. Trust is when a guest can understand what they’re buying, what happens if plans change, and what the property is actually like, without needing to ask. Clarity is not more text. It’s the right answers in the right place, in the right order.

The booking path is where most owners lose money without noticing. Not because the booking engine is “bad,” but because the journey into it feels risky. The moment you ask for a card, the guest asks himself: “Is this safe, is this refundable, will they reply if something goes wrong?” If your site doesn’t pre-solve those doubts, the engine conversion rate stays low no matter how many people you send to it.

And yes, being full doesn’t mean profitable. OTAs can fill rooms while eating the margin quietly, and after the season you wonder why you worked like a dog for a result that feels small. This is not a moral issue. It’s a system issue.

If you want a clean explanation of how OTAs influence pricing and perception, even Wikipedia gets the basics right: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_travel_agency . The key part is not “they exist.” It’s that guests trust their process and policies more than yours by default.

What “direct sales consulting” actually means in owner language

It’s not a marketing lecture. It’s not a folder of “ideas” and it’s not a motivational session. It’s a structured look at where money slips away after someone shows interest. We look at what guests see, what they don’t see, what they misunderstand, and what makes them hesitate.

Direct sales consulting is basically: remove the reasons a normal guest chooses the OTA instead of you. That includes the boring stuff owners avoid because it feels too operational. But it’s exactly where the profit is.

• Decision clarity on key pages: what is included, what is not, and who the property is for.
• Policy friction: cancellation, deposits, check-in rules, and how those are explained.
• Booking risk: payment steps, confirmation messages, and whether the process feels safe.
• Offer consistency: room naming, photos, and pricing presentation that doesn’t trigger suspicion.
• Response reality: how fast you answer, what you answer, and whether you close the loop.
• Channel dependence: where OTAs are masking weak direct conversion and stealing margin.

Notice what’s missing. It’s not about “more followers” and it’s not about posting three times a week. It’s about removing friction where a paying guest is already trying to decide.

If you want a practical reference on conversion friction and why “more traffic” is not the same as “more revenue,” even Ahrefs explains the gap between visits and business outcomes: https://ahrefs.com/blog/conversion-rate-optimization/ . The point is not to copy tactics. It’s to accept that conversion is a separate problem from acquisition.

Hotel reality: what owners actually see when the bucket leaks

You run ads and traffic goes up. Then you notice the phone rings more, but bookings don’t. That is not success. That’s guests who couldn’t self-serve the decision.

Or you get more enquiries through a form, but the conversations go nowhere. That is often because the site didn’t set expectations, so the enquiry is not a booking intent. It’s someone shopping for certainty. If your reply is slow or unclear, intent cools off and you lose the sale without a fight.

I’ve also seen the “full but broke” version. The calendar is packed from OTAs, you feel safe, then you look at the commission and the discounting and you realise your best weeks were your least profitable ones. Owners usually notice this after the first season they track it properly, and then they get angry at the wrong thing.

Two scenarios I’ve seen too many times

Scenario 1: Ads to a homepage that doesn’t help anyone book

A small seaside property spends steadily on Google Ads. The traffic lands on the homepage because “that’s the main page.” The homepage has a nice hero photo, a few generic lines, and then it asks the guest to choose a room without explaining what’s different between them. Breakfast is mentioned somewhere, parking is unclear, and the location is described like a poem.

The guest does what guests do. He opens Booking.com in another tab to confirm basics: exact amenities, cancellation, and whether the room photos match reality. Now your paid click is helping the OTA close the booking. The owner thinks ads don’t work, but the truth is the landing path didn’t do its job.

Scenario 2: Discounting to fill gaps that makes you look desperate

Another owner has gaps in shoulder season. He drops prices hard and pushes “last minute deals” everywhere. The property does get attention, but direct bookings don’t rise much. The discount changes the guest’s perception. It signals risk, not value.

Then the guest asks himself: “Why is it so cheap? Is something wrong? Will they cancel on me? Is it noisy?” He books through an OTA because the OTA feels like insurance. The owner thinks the problem is the audience, but it’s the trust signal he’s sending. I’ve seen this end with lower ADR, more demanding guests, and no improvement in direct share. It’s a mess, and it takes time to clean up.

What changes when direct sales consulting is done correctly

The biggest change is not “more traffic.” It’s that the same traffic produces more confirmed bookings with less drama. You stop relying on phone calls as your main conversion tool. You still answer the phone, but it’s not your only way to close.

You also get fewer low-quality enquiries. That sounds scary until you realise those enquiries were time thieves. When the site is clear, people who are not a fit self-select out. People who are a fit move forward faster. That is what a good booking path does.

Owners also notice something else. Staff stress drops. Reception stops repeating the same answers 40 times a day. Mistakes drop because expectations were set before arrival. The property feels more in control, even in August when everything is loud and busy.

And you start making decisions weekly, not emotionally. Instead of “we need more bookings, turn on ads,” you look at where the drop-off is and fix the step that is failing. That is how grown-up direct sales works.

If you want a neutral explanation of why measuring the full funnel matters, Semrush has a straightforward overview of conversion paths and where people drop: https://www.semrush.com/blog/conversion-funnel/ . Again, the goal isn’t tactics. It’s the mindset that the booking is a sequence, not a click.

What this does not solve

It doesn’t turn a weak product into a strong one. If the rooms are tired, the photos are misleading, or the guest experience is inconsistent, no consulting can “message” that away. It also doesn’t fix a pricing model that doesn’t match your costs. If you don’t know your real margins, direct sales will not magically create profit.

It also doesn’t remove seasonality. Halkidiki in May is not Halkidiki in August, and Thessaloniki weekends are not weekdays. The goal is not to pretend demand is equal. The goal is to capture the demand you already have, with less leakage and less dependence.

And it doesn’t work if you refuse to decide. Many owners want “options” forever. They want a report that lets them avoid committing. Direct sales improves when you choose a path and stick to it long enough to see what actually changes.

When this is a bad fit

It’s a bad fit if you want someone to blame. It’s also a bad fit if you want constant experimentation without discipline. Direct sales is not a playground. It’s a revenue system.

It’s also a bad fit when responsibility is split in a way that makes diagnosis impossible. If another agency controls your ads and changes targeting every few days, while someone else edits the site, while your booking engine settings get tweaked by a third party, you won’t get clean signals. Then everyone argues about what caused what. We’ve seen this fail many times, and it fails the same way: noise replaces truth.

It’s also not for owners who insist on keeping key information vague because they think vagueness creates flexibility. Vague policies and unclear inclusions do create flexibility. For the guest to leave.

The boundary that protects your money (and our sanity)

Real consulting needs a stable environment. That doesn’t mean perfection. It means we can observe a baseline, change one thing, and see what happens. If the site is being redesigned mid-season, if the booking engine is being swapped, or if an agency is running “tests” without tracking, you don’t get a diagnosable system. You get chaos with invoices.

We also don’t do “optimization” while other agencies have access and can override changes. Not because we’re precious. Because you can’t be accountable for a machine when someone else keeps changing the gears. Owners think this is about control. It’s about being able to say, honestly, what is working and what isn’t.

What you should expect instead of a 40-page report

You should expect a fix order. Not a pile of ideas. Most properties don’t need 20 improvements. They need 5 decisions in the right sequence.

You should also expect a weekly decision routine. A short check-in rhythm where you look at a few signals that matter and decide what to adjust. Not a dashboard circus. Not a new strategy every Tuesday. Boring, stable, repeatable.

And you should expect plain language. No jargon, no “funnels” unless they help you decide something. Just: where the guest hesitates, why, and what changes when you remove that hesitation. Sometimes it’s one sentence on a room page. Sometimes it’s a policy explanation. Sometimes it’s the order of information, not the information itself. Small changes, when they’re placed correctly, stop big leaks. That’s the part owners always underestimate.

Make the decision like a business owner, not like a hopeful marketer

If direct bookings matter to you, the question is not “Can we get more traffic?” The question is “Are we turning existing intent into confirmed bookings at a rate that matches our margins?” If the answer is no, buying more clicks is like pouring more water into the same leaking bucket. It looks active, but it doesn’t build anything.

If you want to talk, we can meet at your property. Leaks are easier to spot when you see the offer, the real guest questions, and how the booking actually happens on a normal phone, with normal signal, in real conditions. Bring your last season’s reality, not your best-case numbers, and we’ll speak in decisions, not dreams.

Not sure where to start? Contact our local team for friendly, personalised advice and to arrange a meeting in person.

No shortcuts. No noise. Data analysis. Use only what works.