Who owns the guest?
Discovery can come from anywhere, but you should own the guest relationship. That line runs through six headlines this quarter. Google pulled its rentals box from Search in the EEA, Airbnb started testing direct booking links, Expedia put a number on guest patience, and Airbnb launched a discount for top-rated guests. Since then, Vrbo has announced a new 12% commission, and Airbnb has announced a new house rules policy that limits what hosts can ask of guests.
Different stories, but all with one question underneath: who owns the guest?
Platforms aren't the enemy. Airbnb, Booking.com and Vrbo invest billions in marketing. They're doing their job and offering hosts a real service. In fact, I think hosts would benefit from treating OTA commission as a marketing investment. But like any marketing investment, it should buy you a guest, not rent you one. The hosts who win treat every first booking as the start of a relationship they own.
Hosts on Smoobu in both 2025 and 2026 took more bookings through their own websites in all five of our biggest markets, from +2% in France to +11% in Spain (Smoobu data, Jan–Sep 2026 vs 2025). Their bookings overall grew faster, too. Ownership doesn't happen on its own, it’s something that needs to be built.
Who owns discovery?
Let's start at the top of the funnel. On 8 September, Google removed its vacation rentals box from Search in the EEA. Rentals still appear in Maps and Google Hotels, so this isn't a disappearance. But it is a reminder that a free spot on someone else's platform isn't an entitlement. Platforms set the rules, and change them when they decide to.
I’ve been at Smoobu for a while now and I see how more than 100,000 properties are run across our platform. Which means I also see how the ones that hold up best spread their discovery, so no single switch can disrupt their business. That might mean listing on more than one OTA using the Smoobu Channel Manager, keeping your Google Business Profile up to date, or building a small social presence that points guests back to your own website.
Who owns the booking?
If discovery is shifting, so is the booking itself. Airbnb is testing direct booking links with select hosts. Hosts generate a custom link in the listing editor, share it with their own audience, and pay lower fees on the bookings it brings in. For the first time, a platform has put a price on finding your own guest: bring the guest yourself and the fee drops from 15.5%.
Vrbo is changing its fees too. Hosts will now pay a 12% commission. If you don't use Vrbo Payments, there's an extra 3% payment fee on top. If Vrbo is part of your channel mix, that 3% is the easiest margin you'll win back this year. Our Vrbo integration, including Vrbo Payments, is coming to Smoobu very soon, so you'll be able to keep your commission at a lower rate without adding another tool to your Smoobu Property Management System.
Taken together, that's the clearest signal yet of where things are heading: even the OTAs see the value of a direct booking, and they're pricing every step of the guest journey. The channels you use as a host bring you new guests. Your own website is where they come back, without commission. Every booking that moves you from A to B (your own channel) is the margin you keep with the Smoobu direct booking engine.
There is also a seeming difference between the two audiences. As per insights from KeyData’s VRWS 2026 presentation, guests you own plan ahead, whereas commission buys you the late ones. For example, direct takes 68.9% of bookings made six months or more ahead, while Booking.com and Airbnb take 82% of bookings made in the last week (KeyData, VRWS 2026).
On their own websites, our hosts' guests book earlier than on Airbnb or Booking.com in three of our five biggest markets: 38 days ahead vs 13–18 in DACH, 35 vs 18 in the UK & Ireland, 18 vs 7–11 in France (Smoobu data, median, Jan–Sep 2026). In Italy and Spain, booking windows are similar across channels.
Who owns the stay?
Owning the booking is only half of it. Once guests arrive, they still need to feel looked after.
56% of travellers expect a response within an hour if something goes wrong (Expedia Group). For a solo host with a day job, that sounds like a steep bar. But what if the bar isn’t instant, it’s just not silence? I’m a firm believer that a simple "I've seen this, I'm looking into it now" buys you time and trust, it reminds guests that a real human is behind this business and taking their concern seriously. Even better is when you automate that first reply so the guest feels handled using Smoobu automated guest communication tools.
And then there's the question of who sets the rules of the stay. From 20 November 2026, Airbnb's new house rules policy applies to every new booking. Each rule has to be in your listing's house rules section at the time of booking, and you can't add new ones later by message, sign or in person.
Rules also need to be reasonable. No chores a cleaner would usually do, like stripping beds or washing dishes. No charging for advertised features outside the booking price, and no fines: for damage, Airbnb points hosts to AirCover.
On the same date, separate contracts and requests for ID documents or contact details are generally no longer allowed, unless a law or community association rule requires them. For guests booked through Airbnb, the platform owns the terms of the stay, and increasingly the line to the guest, too. It's one more reason the relationship you build on your own channel matters.
Before 20 November, check your house rules section, your automated messages and any signs in your property. Read our full breakdown here.
Owning the guest means owning their experience, and communication is a huge part of that. And it doesn't go without acknowledgement: single-unit hosts average 4.85 in Airbnb reviews, operators with 100+ units 4.62 (AirDNA, Europe, Summer 2026). The more properties you manage, the harder it gets to give every guest that personal touch but automation provides a way to bridge that gap.
Who owns the guest quality bar?
Then there's the question of who you host in the first place. Airbnb's Top-Rated Guest Discount lets you offer a lower price only to guests with strong reviews from other hosts. In effect, you trade some price for guests who've proven they respect a property.
In Airbnb's own pilot, listings offering 15% saw +11% gross booking value and +14% nights booked. If guest quality is a problem for you, it's worth testing. When I posted about this, though, hosts in the comments were split.
One host saw strong guest quality but found the discount stacking with others to 35% or even 45%. In his view, Airbnb should fund this one itself. Another host would rather reward loyalty: a guest returning to the same property, not a rating earned somewhere else. That second view brings us right back to the start, in that the guest most worth rewarding is the one you already own.
So, who owns your guest?
Channels will keep building their own versions of "ownership", and that's a sign of a maturing industry. The hosts who come out ahead are the ones who own the pieces that matter: their website built with the Smoobu website builder, their guest experience and their standard for who they host. And they'll keep the relationship going after checkout, so the next booking comes straight to them.
See you next time,
Jannik
