Do I have to leave Airbnb and Booking.com to take direct bookings?

No, and you should not. Ayla stays listed on nine channels through Hostfully and Guesty while the direct site grows alongside them. The marketplaces keep supplying first-time guests; the direct site is where the repeat ones come back, without the commission.

Will it work with the channel manager or PMS I already run?

Probably. We built Ayla against Hostfully and Guesty directly. Lodgify, Smoobu, Uplisting and OwnerRez expose the same kind of availability API, so tell us which one you run and we will confirm it before you commit to anything.

Do I have to undercut the marketplaces on price?

No. Rate parity terms generally stop you publishing a lower headline rate, but they do not stop you keeping the commission. The same nightly rate booked direct is simply worth 15–30% more to you, and that margin is the whole case for building this.

How long does a direct-booking site take?

Four to eight weeks for a portfolio of this size, depending on how many properties need photography and whether your channel manager exposes a clean availability API. The sync work usually sets the pace, not the pages.

We're not in holiday homes. Does this apply to us?

The pattern does. If a marketplace owns your customer relationship and prices it per transaction, an owned booking channel is worth building. We have run the same argument for car rental and chauffeur brands — different inventory, same question about who owns the customer.

All work

Building direct booking infrastructure to bypass marketplace fees

Holiday Homes · Website

Premium stay discovery and direct booking for holiday homes in Abu Dhabi.

+43%Direct bookings

Build something similar→Visit site

Client: Ayla
Industry: Holiday Homes
Location: Abu Dhabi
Platform: Website
Engagement: Client project
Live: aylahh.ae

(✦) — In summary: Ayla

Ayla Holiday Homes is a short-term rental operator in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, that was paying 15–30% commission on every booking to marketplaces owning the guest relationship. NxFold built a direct-booking platform on Next.js and Vercel: photography-led stay discovery, real-time availability, an integrated booking engine with Stripe card payments, and cancellation terms stated before the payment step rather than after it. Listings stay synced to Airbnb, Booking.com, Vrbo, Expedia, Agoda, Wego, Tripadvisor, Trip.com and Google Vacation Rentals through Hostfully and Guesty, so direct booking grows without costing marketplace presence. Direct bookings are estimated up 43% in the 90 days after launch.

01 — The problem behind Ayla

Ayla was paying 15–30% commission on every booking to OTA platforms they didn't control. Guests who wanted to return couldn't find them directly. The entire business depended on platforms that raised fees, changed algorithms, and owned the customer relationship.

02 — Our strategy for Ayla

We built a brand-owned booking infrastructure: a direct-booking platform with rich photography, real-time availability, and a trust-first experience that gives guests the confidence to book without the OTA safety net — while staying fully listed. Properties sync to Airbnb, Booking.com, Wego and more through Hostfully and Guesty, so growing direct never costs marketplace presence.

03 — What we built for Ayla

We built premium stay discovery with rich photography, transparent availability and a direct-booking flow designed to earn trust at the moment of decision.

(✦) — What we shipped for Ayla

A stay-discovery experience built around photography, presenting each property at the size and quality a guest needs to commit without an OTA review page to fall back on.
A direct-booking flow with real-time availability, so the dates a guest sees are the dates the calendar actually holds.
Channel sync through Hostfully and Guesty, keeping listings live on Airbnb, Booking.com, Vrbo, Expedia, Agoda, Wego, Tripadvisor, Trip.com and Google Vacation Rentals while direct grows alongside them.
Trust signals placed where the hesitation happens — house rules, cancellation terms and what is included, stated before the payment step rather than after it.
An integrated booking engine and card payment, so the reservation completes on the brand's own domain instead of handing the guest back to a marketplace.
A mobile-first Next.js and Vercel build, because stay research starts on a phone even when the booking finishes on a laptop.

(✦) — Measured results for Ayla

+43%: Direct bookings
−28%: OTA dependency
2.4×: Repeat guest rate

Estimated impact, ~90 days post-launch.

(✦) — The stack behind Ayla

Technologies

Next.js 14
TypeScript
Tailwind CSS
Booking Engine
Stripe
Channel Sync
Vercel

(✦) — Channel sync

One calendar. Every marketplace.

Direct booking doesn't mean going dark on the marketplaces. Ayla's properties publish to Airbnb, Booking.com, Wego and more through PMS integrations like Hostfully and Guesty — rates and availability stay in sync everywhere, while the brand's own site converts the guests worth keeping.

Distribution channels

Airbnb
Booking.com
Wego
+ more
- Vrbo
- Expedia
- Agoda
- Tripadvisor
- Trip.com
- Google Vacation Rentals

Synced through

Hostfully
Guesty
+ more
- Lodgify
- Smoobu
- Uplisting
- OwnerRez

aylahh.ae

04 — The outcome for Ayla

Guests now book directly with confidence, lifting direct bookings and keeping more revenue with the brand.

They genuinely understood how our guests browse. Direct bookings come straight through the site now, and I spend far less time going back and forth on WhatsApp.

Jawad Abu Issa · Owner, Ayla Holiday Homes

(✦) — What this project demonstrates

This project demonstrates NxFold's experience building direct-booking websites for holiday-home operators in Abu Dhabi, including channel-manager synchronisation through Hostfully and Guesty and card payment completed on the operator's own domain.

(✦) — FAQ

Ayla: questions, answered.

Do I have to leave Airbnb and Booking.com to take direct bookings?
No, and you should not. Ayla stays listed on nine channels through Hostfully and Guesty while the direct site grows alongside them. The marketplaces keep supplying first-time guests; the direct site is where the repeat ones come back, without the commission.
Will it work with the channel manager or PMS I already run?
Probably. We built Ayla against Hostfully and Guesty directly. Lodgify, Smoobu, Uplisting and OwnerRez expose the same kind of availability API, so tell us which one you run and we will confirm it before you commit to anything.
Do I have to undercut the marketplaces on price?
No. Rate parity terms generally stop you publishing a lower headline rate, but they do not stop you keeping the commission. The same nightly rate booked direct is simply worth 15–30% more to you, and that margin is the whole case for building this.
How long does a direct-booking site take?
Four to eight weeks for a portfolio of this size, depending on how many properties need photography and whether your channel manager exposes a clean availability API. The sync work usually sets the pace, not the pages.
We're not in holiday homes. Does this apply to us?
The pattern does. If a marketplace owns your customer relationship and prices it per transaction, an owned booking channel is worth building. We have run the same argument for car rental and chauffeur brands — different inventory, same question about who owns the customer.