• Up to 60 % of travel shoppers who book through an Online Travel Agency (OTA) might visit your Website first.
• Capture travel shoppers‘ contact information (especially their email address) for future vacation rental marketing activities (e.g. run a contest, that require the winner to book a stay to redeem the prize; invite potential guests to subscribe to your newsletter in order to receive special offers, useful tips etc.).
• Include Guest Reviews on your website to convince potential guests to book direct. Don’t give your visitors an excuse to leave and go searching them.
• Leverage User Generated Content (UGC) on your website in order to stand out from OTAs. Potential guests will trust it more than traditional marketing messages. Find content, that travelers have posted on social media and ask your past guest for permission to publish it on your website. Create a custom hashtag for your accomodation (Vacation Rental, B&B, Hotel) to make it easy to find content on social media. Encourage your guests to tag your brand and to „check-in“ on social media.
• Create special offers, that are exclusive to your website (not available anywhere else online) and that can only be claimed by booking direct (e.g. priority service at check-in, faster WiFi, free welcome drink, later check-out time).
• Boost the Benefits of Booking Direct (e.g. explicitly list the reasons to book direct on your vacation rental website).
• OTAs play an important part in selling/promoting your property. But your own website can be a powerful tool to entice travelers to book direct and to reduce your OTA commissions.

(Source: via Leonardo Worldwide Corporation – @VFMLeonardo – Get full details at http://www.vizlly.com/blog-ota-shoppers-direct-bookers/ )