What are your experiences with flipkey, trip advisor, agoda and bookings.com ?

[sangfroid]

From a customer point of view. I have nothing but praise for AGODA, having used them for several years plus others such as Asia Rooms etc., however AGODA is the only one for me now.

Likewise, I can't speak for the others, but I have used AGODA several times in the last couple of years, making bookings both in SE Asia and Europe. I also have nothing but praise for them.

[mikecat]

As a consumer, I find Agoda is a great source of information regarding price and quality of hotels in Asia. However, my Thai wife insists that there is no need to book on line (in Thailand) as you can get cheaper by turning up at the desk and she is right. However, I wouldnt risk this at some locations on special holidays etc.

[thairastawoman]

Is Asiarooms still a Pattaya company ?

[adammike]

I book only with agoda and its always worked don't even have to print out the voucher just show it on my tablet

to reception.not convinced I get the best room though.

I have recently booked a hotel in cha am for February but

I don't have to pay till January not good for the hotel

as they won't get any money till after I pay?

I use trip advisor for the reviews and read the reviews

on agoda,ignore the 10s and 2s and go with the average.

What I want from my stay in a place five stars or a b&b is

Wi-Fi that works in MY room,Clean towels not some rancid

floor cloth,a safe,clean shower and toilet no mould etc,

that's it really.

when i book with agoda I use the map to decide where I want

to stay so it is no good wethear the place is first or last

on the agoda list

[marquis22]

From a customer point of view. I have nothing but praise for AGODA, having used them for several years plus others such as Asia Rooms etc., however AGODA is the only one for me now.

Same me

[hawker9000]

I have used Agoda a lot. A whole lot. Have also used tripadvisor & booking.com. Have never tried flipkey, but have occasionally used latestays & asiatravel once or twice. I like the Agoda points, the extent of the information they provide about most hotels, and the usually extensive guest comments. They used to advertise refundable bookings & book now/pay later, but in practice, at least in my experience, that's usually pre-empted by the individual hotel policy. I have ended up with Agoda having to pay for a room I ended up not using one night in Manila, and for the next night in Puerto Princesa where I arrived a day late due to the missed airline connection in Manila (thank-you NAIA). 'Can't fault Agoda for that since that WAS clearly specified during the online booking process. It just doesn't pay to change your plans at the last minute or experience unexpected travel delays.

[Absolut]

As a consumer, I have found that using tripadvisor, agoda and booking.com to find places and reviews helpful. But try to book directly with the establishment for the best rate. Same with the airlines.

I do similar, I research and review using TA, I get pricing through Expedia then look at a hotels website for their rates and promotions.

Many of the booking sites only offer room / breakfast / wifi while hotel websites tend to have drink, room upgrade and transfer promotions not offered anywhere else.

I've found Expedia can be good for 'book now, pay later, no cancellation fee period' when looking to at least secure a good rate or room in high and peak seasons.

OP, being pro-active on TA with replies to reviews is essential as already posted. It's the only way travelers using TA can see your opinion. Self promotion in the TA forums is not allowed and quickly jumped on. Most regular users of TA though will discount the 1 review wonders if they're very negative as it's more likely a fake review from an opposing establishment.

Good luck with your new business.

[malt25]

I have been using Booking.com for many years now in several countries. I wouldn't consider traveling anywhere without using them. In one or two instances where the accommodation has been what I considered sub-standard they have refunded part of the room charge without me requesting same. They get 10/10 from me.

Cheers..... Mal.

[Cats4ever]

From the consumer's point of view, I think AGODA is a bit too fly for me. The expiring points racket is a bit rich. They also seem to be a tad more expensive often. Try Trivago.com for a comparison site.

[henry15]

As a costumor I noticed that hotels don't put their best rooms on booking websites. Therefore I look at sawadeehotel.com first, because they give the most information, and than I look up the hotelwebsite to see ALL the rooms to make my choice ans sometimes I even let the wifey phone to get the Thai price

[natway09]

I have used Agoda & found them pretty good.

From a customer perspective need to be a little careful with checking what category booking as I got caught once in that tried to cancel

(urgent new plans arose) 20 minutes later & could not as had booked a non cancellable rate.

From your side had a talk to one lady who runs a Motel is now paying 12% to Agoda which is getting a bit high.

As previously stated if look after your customers Agoda will give you a good marketing base.

Good Luck, you will be fine

[hawker9000]

I'm curious. When a hotel signs on with Agoda or Tripadvisor or any of the others, is there any requirement that's part of the agreement that keeps the hotel from offering a better advertised rate anywhere else, either with other hotel room providers or on the hotel's own website? If so, can it be got around by "segregating" specific rooms offered via, say, Agoda, from those retained in its own "bin"? 'Sounds like such arrangements could get complicated, and even not practically enforceable.

[jamesbrock]

I'm curious. When a hotel signs on with Agoda or Tripadvisor or any of the others, is there any requirement that's part of the agreement that keeps the hotel from offering a better advertised rate anywhere else, either with other hotel room providers or on the hotel's own website? If so, can it be got around by "segregating" specific rooms offered via, say, Agoda, from those retained in its own "bin"? 'Sounds like such arrangements could get complicated, and even not practically enforceable.

Yes, all online travel agents (OTAs) have rate parity clauses, which, as the term implies, requires your rates across all OTAs to be the same - this clause excludes your own website. That being said, they all often run promotions on an opt-in basis, with participation requiring the discounted rates to only be available to their customers. Wotif, for example, are always running various promotions, but will be the first to contact you when they discover a competitor's rates are cheaper.

At the end of the day, as long as your yielding strategy is on target, there's no reason to go to the extra effort to segregate rooms so as to sell them cheaper with one particular OTA.

--

To answer the OP, yes, you should certainly sign up with some OTAs, OTAs accounted for nearly two thirds of APAC's US$23 billion online hotel market in 2012, so it would be foolhardy to not have a part of that source. Standalone and unbranded hotels such as what you're proposing to open are prevalent across APAC, and travellers are turning to intermediaries to get an aggregate view of their options.

Before I moved to Thailand, I used Booking.com almost religiously, but travelling through SE Asia I often found places that were only listed on Agoda, so I began using that. According to PhoCusWright's Pan-Asia Pacific Online Travel Traffic Trends Report, Agoda is the most popular OTA in five of nine countries studied and the only OTA to hold the top spot in multiple Asia Pacific (APAC) markets. In 4Q12, Agoda ranked as the most-trafficked OTA in Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines and South Korea.

It is worth noting that Agoda and Boking.com are both owned by Priceline, and Booking.com whose APAC business does particularly well within international bookers. So if you're hoping to woo international bookers, it might be worth considering signing up with Booking.com.

In Australia, where we are working at the moment, Agoda takes a 15% commission, whereas Wotif takes 12% and Booking.com 10%. These rates may differ in Thailand. This means that, although OTAs are a great partner because they give you much wider distribution, you need to manage them as well as driving your own website.

A word on TripAdvisor: use it, pay for it, drive it. It is by far the best marketing tool you could use - if you're doing a good job, that is.

[simon43]

I'll drop in my 2 cents of comments.

I have built 4 small hotels near to Phuket Airport. I sold one and still own/manage the other 3. They each have about 8 guest rooms.

Right from the start, my business plan assumed that the vast majority of my room bookings would come from OTAs, such as Booking.com, Agoda.com, Expedia.com etc. So my business financials factored in the commission that I would have to pay the agent. That commission is typically 25%, but can be higher if you opt to pay more in order to get a higher ranking on their website.

The commission is high, but the upside is that the OTAs manage all the advertising and marketing of my properties. I only pay commission if a customer books (and stays) at my hotels.

Of course, it would be nice to receive most bookings commission-free, such as from your own hotel website or recommendations. Realistically, that is not going to happen. I employ a company to perform SEO on my hotel websites, in order to get a higher ranking on Google, (and thus - hopefully - more direct bookings).

I use about 10 OTAs to generate guest bookings for me. A word of advice. Do not even think of trying to manage the room alllocations 'manually' on all these OTA websites. I tried it and was slowly going crazy, closing out rooms on each website, and then having to go through the process again for the next customer booking. You should use a Channel Manager service which will manage your room allocations/rates automatically as each booking is received. I use Update247, which works very well and is reasonably-priced and easy to use.

As for which OTAs to use, be aware that there is a growing trend for customers to pay at the hotel, not upfront. Booking.com has always operated as 'pay at hotel' , whilst Agoda and Expedia/Hotels.com have operated as 'pay upfront'. Expedia is changing their business model now to 'pay at hotel'.

If you check the Alexa.com website for how popular each OTA website is, you will see that Booking.com is much more popular than Agoda, (Booking.com is ranked globally at #98 and Agoda is around #450). Alexa will also show you in which country most website visitors are based. This is useful information because you can tailor your OTA website to match your audience exspectations. (For example, Wotif.com is a very popular OTA for the Australian sector).

Sawadee.com is a well-respected OTA for the Thai sector. However, it is not compatible with Channel Managers, and room allotments have to be manually updated, which could lead to room overbooking in peak season.

Flipkey will probably refuse to list your property - they target private apartments etc.

Be careful of paying for a business listing on TripAdvisor - I found the returns on my investment in a listing to be miniscule...

Airbnb is growing in popularity, and has a low commission rate. It has recently been declared illegal to use Airbnb to rent out private apartments in New York City, presumably because its low commission rate upsets other OTAs.

For my hotels, about 80% of all room bookings come from Booking.com. The number of bookings from Agoda continues to fall, not only because of their 'pay upfront' policy, but because recent changes on their customer website makes it more difficult to get a list of hotels in the area of interest. (One used to be able to sort the list of hotels by distance from a point of interest, such as the nearest hotel to the airport. Agoda removed that sort by distance option...)

Simon

[jamesbrock]

Some great points Simon; it's interesting how different the commission structures for the OTAs are in Thailand, as opposed to Australia.

I do, however, disagree with you regarding the TripAdvisor business listings. As you know, the Business Listing allows you to place your hotel's website and contact details on its TripAdvisor page, and can even pay so your own booking page is the top result in the rates field; without the Business Listing, potential guests have to either Google your own website and rates, or simply click on one of the OTA sponsored links. In the two places I have been able to convice the owners to pay for the Business Listing, the number of bookings we have managed to 'steal' away for the OTA's to our own - commission-free - booking page has been staggering. In both places, the business listing has paid for itself within 4-6 months. It's interesting, though not unheard of, that you found the returns to be miniscule.

Of course, we drive TripAdvisor by asking for reviews in our post-stay email (which gets sent out automatically by our PMS four days after departure) which keeps our page constantly near the top for our area.

[simon43]

Yes, I was very disappointed with the results from my business listing on Tripadvisor. I did not appreciate the 'hard sell' from the Indian call-centre, and I especially did not appreciate their incompetence in correcting some aspects of my property listing.

I can't recall getting a single direct booking from our listing - it was a complete waste of my money.

Why you got/get such a good response and I did not is strange. Perhaps it is more down to the type of property, (my hotels are 'transit' airport businesses).

[jamesbrock]

Yes, I was very disappointed with the results from my business listing on Tripadvisor. I did not appreciate the 'hard sell' from the Indian call-centre, and I especially did not appreciate their incompetence in correcting some aspects of my property listing.

I can't recall getting a single direct booking from our listing - it was a complete waste of my money.

Why you got/get such a good response and I did not is strange. Perhaps it is more down to the type of property, (my hotels are 'transit' airport businesses).

Possibly the case. We haven't gone with a Business Listing at our current place, after TripAdvisor increased the rate by 460% (after launching an incredibly successful Groupon promotion, and driving a huge amount of traffic to our listing) - there is no way we could come out in front paying close to five grand for it! With a more realistic price, I'd go for it again though.

I forgot to mention that your advice re Channel Managers is very good. Our CM syncs with our PMS, so all online bookings drop straight into our system, and availability across all other OTA's is updated when we enter bookings manually (phone, email, etc.) - would hate to go back to doing it all manually!

[ThaiSmarterThanYou]

I'll drop in my 2 cents of comments.

I have built 4 small hotels near to Phuket Airport. I sold one and still own/manage the other 3. They each have about 8 guest rooms.

Right from the start, my business plan assumed that the vast majority of my room bookings would come from OTAs, such as Booking.com, Agoda.com, Expedia.com etc. So my business financials factored in the commission that I would have to pay the agent. That commission is typically 25%, but can be higher if you opt to pay more in order to get a higher ranking on their website.

The commission is high, but the upside is that the OTAs manage all the advertising and marketing of my properties. I only pay commission if a customer books (and stays) at my hotels.

Of course, it would be nice to receive most bookings commission-free, such as from your own hotel website or recommendations. Realistically, that is not going to happen. I employ a company to perform SEO on my hotel websites, in order to get a higher ranking on Google, (and thus - hopefully - more direct bookings).

I use about 10 OTAs to generate guest bookings for me. A word of advice. Do not even think of trying to manage the room alllocations 'manually' on all these OTA websites. I tried it and was slowly going crazy, closing out rooms on each website, and then having to go through the process again for the next customer booking. You should use a Channel Manager service which will manage your room allocations/rates automatically as each booking is received. I use Update247, which works very well and is reasonably-priced and easy to use.

As for which OTAs to use, be aware that there is a growing trend for customers to pay at the hotel, not upfront. Booking.com has always operated as 'pay at hotel' , whilst Agoda and Expedia/Hotels.com have operated as 'pay upfront'. Expedia is changing their business model now to 'pay at hotel'.

If you check the Alexa.com website for how popular each OTA website is, you will see that Booking.com is much more popular than Agoda, (Booking.com is ranked globally at #98 and Agoda is around #450). Alexa will also show you in which country most website visitors are based. This is useful information because you can tailor your OTA website to match your audience exspectations. (For example, Wotif.com is a very popular OTA for the Australian sector).

Sawadee.com is a well-respected OTA for the Thai sector. However, it is not compatible with Channel Managers, and room allotments have to be manually updated, which could lead to room overbooking in peak season.

Flipkey will probably refuse to list your property - they target private apartments etc.

Be careful of paying for a business listing on TripAdvisor - I found the returns on my investment in a listing to be miniscule...

Airbnb is growing in popularity, and has a low commission rate. It has recently been declared illegal to use Airbnb to rent out private apartments in New York City, presumably because its low commission rate upsets other OTAs.

For my hotels, about 80% of all room bookings come from Booking.com. The number of bookings from Agoda continues to fall, not only because of their 'pay upfront' policy, but because recent changes on their customer website makes it more difficult to get a list of hotels in the area of interest. (One used to be able to sort the list of hotels by distance from a point of interest, such as the nearest hotel to the airport. Agoda removed that sort by distance option...)

Simon

Interesting but

- distance option still exists on Agoda and the website hasn't changed much in year, but true that it is not so famous in EU and US

- booking is always first anywhere it seems

- your SEO company is not so good if you are not able to get room booking from your own websites, or maybe you do not pay for enough service ?

- what about Asiarooms, now dead since the French millionaire sold it to TLC ?

[simon43]

Interesting but

- distance option still exists on Agoda and the website hasn't changed much in year, but true that it is not so famous in EU and US

You must be using a different Agoda from me...

- your SEO company is not so good if you are not able to get room booking from your own websites, or maybe you do not pay for enough service ?

I get room bookings, but not as many as I would like. However, the prices charged by SEO companies start to become comparable to the commission rate of the OTAs. The difference is that I only pay the OTAs when a customer books (and stays), whereas I have to pay the SEO companies a monthly fee, regardless of whether or not their SEO work is successful.

Now if the SEOs worked on a per-guest-booking basis, I might be interested..

- what about Asiarooms, now dead since the French millionaire sold it to TLC ?

Guest bookings from Asiarooms dropped like a stone after he sold the company. I no longer use them. RatestoGo (Orbitz) was another good OTA that seems to have dropped off the radar as well.

[keestha]

I used to do business with Hostelworld, but severed links with them when they raised their commission from 10 to 15 %. Most of the bookings for my hotel have always come directly from customers. Hostelworld is the only booking site that I have ever used. My place exists since 2000, a lot of people know it and it has good Tripadvisor/Holidaycheck reviews, so many people are searching it directly by its name. One disadvantage of say being on Agoda, is that Agoda's website will come up as a search result on top of your own website, so people might decide to book through Agoda, and you lose their minimally 13% commission.

[thefactoryoutlet]

Interesting but

- distance option still exists on Agoda and the website hasn't changed much in year, but true that it is not so famous in EU and US

You must be using a different Agoda from me...

agoda.jpg

- your SEO company is not so good if you are not able to get room booking from your own websites, or maybe you do not pay for enough service ?

I get room bookings, but not as many as I would like. However, the prices charged by SEO companies start to become comparable to the commission rate of the OTAs. The difference is that I only pay the OTAs when a customer books (and stays), whereas I have to pay the SEO companies a monthly fee, regardless of whether or not their SEO work is successful.

Now if the SEOs worked on a per-guest-booking basis, I might be interested..

- what about Asiarooms, now dead since the French millionaire sold it to TLC ?

Guest bookings from Asiarooms dropped like a stone after he sold the company. I no longer use them. RatestoGo (Orbitz) was another good OTA that seems to have dropped off the radar as well.

Hello,

Can I know which company is a good SEO company in Thailand and how much you pay them ?

I also wonder about Asiarooms, is it a fail since it has been bought ? Why ? It was so famous many years ago before agoda ?

[German Viking]

Dear all,

thanks a lot for the comprehensive and useful info received so far! To answer the questions contained in a few posts: The resort is located in Khao Lak, and it is a boutique kind of holiday home place with 3 apartments/studios and 5 houses with 2br and kitchen each. Quite posh, but no stars

Cheers,

Catweazle

I can recommend "airbnb" they are the best, for several reasons.

The main reason to use them, is you can add the booking fee to the customers called "service fee" and the customer see it in advance.

There is only 1 hook, if your are an american, then issue it in another name, caused you can be taxed + to your other income.

https://www.airbnb.de/rooms/5041577?checkin=13.04.2015&checkout=20.04.2015&s=B0dP

[German Viking]

Hello Catweazle, 1 last word, don't spend money on a website, place it in Facebook is for free and you can do it yourself, not need to be a rocket scientist.

Carpe diem

[konying]

Yes, I was very disappointed with the results from my business listing on Tripadvisor. I did not appreciate the 'hard sell' from the Indian call-centre, and I especially did not appreciate their incompetence in correcting some aspects of my property listing.

I can't recall getting a single direct booking from our listing - it was a complete waste of my money.

Why you got/get such a good response and I did not is strange. Perhaps it is more down to the type of property, (my hotels are 'transit' airport businesses).

Tripadvisir business listing with FlipKey and all the rest they offer at $80 per month plus per click costs also was waste of money for me.

Not a single booking, useless customer support.

[konying]

Hello Catweazle, 1 last word, don't spend money on a website, place it in Facebook is for free and you can do it yourself, not need to be a rocket scientist.

Carpe diem

Only the most unprofessional businesses will have Facebook page only. Worst advice ever.

Make sure to have fully functional , professionally made and looking website with booking engine if you want to be taken serious and trusted.

Can set up Facebook as a supplement , most certainly not as a main page.

Also make sure to invest in SSL for booking engine

[konying]

Dear all,

thanks a lot for the comprehensive and useful info received so far! To answer the questions contained in a few posts: The resort is located in Khao Lak, and it is a boutique kind of holiday home place with 3 apartments/studios and 5 houses with 2br and kitchen each. Quite posh, but no stars

Cheers,

Catweazle

I can recommend "airbnb" they are the best, for several reasons.

The main reason to use them, is you can add the booking fee to the customers called "service fee" and the customer see it in advance.

There is only 1 hook, if your are an american, then issue it in another name, caused you can be taxed + to your other income.

https://www.airbnb.de/rooms/5041577?checkin=13.04.2015&checkout=20.04.2015&s=B0dP

Again terrible advice .

Air BnB is like an offer site, where you can waste your time getting offers without a single booking.

Can not help but wonder if you actually ever owned or managed a hotel or resort or a guesthouse .

[konying]

Is Asiarooms still a Pattaya company ?

It never was. Singapore based , ceased to exist 2 weeks ago, but still on line .

[konying]

I'll drop in my 2 cents of comments.

I have built 4 small hotels near to Phuket Airport. I sold one and still own/manage the other 3. They each have about 8 guest rooms.

Right from the start, my business plan assumed that the vast majority of my room bookings would come from OTAs, such as Booking.com, Agoda.com, Expedia.com etc. So my business financials factored in the commission that I would have to pay the agent. That commission is typically 25%, but can be higher if you opt to pay more in order to get a higher ranking on their website.

The commission is high, but the upside is that the OTAs manage all the advertising and marketing of my properties. I only pay commission if a customer books (and stays) at my hotels.

Of course, it would be nice to receive most bookings commission-free, such as from your own hotel website or recommendations. Realistically, that is not going to happen. I employ a company to perform SEO on my hotel websites, in order to get a higher ranking on Google, (and thus - hopefully - more direct bookings).

I use about 10 OTAs to generate guest bookings for me. A word of advice. Do not even think of trying to manage the room alllocations 'manually' on all these OTA websites. I tried it and was slowly going crazy, closing out rooms on each website, and then having to go through the process again for the next customer booking. You should use a Channel Manager service which will manage your room allocations/rates automatically as each booking is received. I use Update247, which works very well and is reasonably-priced and easy to use.

As for which OTAs to use, be aware that there is a growing trend for customers to pay at the hotel, not upfront. Booking.com has always operated as 'pay at hotel' , whilst Agoda and Expedia/Hotels.com have operated as 'pay upfront'. Expedia is changing their business model now to 'pay at hotel'.

If you check the Alexa.com website for how popular each OTA website is, you will see that Booking.com is much more popular than Agoda, (Booking.com is ranked globally at #98 and Agoda is around #450). Alexa will also show you in which country most website visitors are based. This is useful information because you can tailor your OTA website to match your audience exspectations. (For example, Wotif.com is a very popular OTA for the Australian sector).

Sawadee.com is a well-respected OTA for the Thai sector. However, it is not compatible with Channel Managers, and room allotments have to be manually updated, which could lead to room overbooking in peak season.

Flipkey will probably refuse to list your property - they target private apartments etc.

Be careful of paying for a business listing on TripAdvisor - I found the returns on my investment in a listing to be miniscule...

Airbnb is growing in popularity, and has a low commission rate. It has recently been declared illegal to use Airbnb to rent out private apartments in New York City, presumably because its low commission rate upsets other OTAs.

For my hotels, about 80% of all room bookings come from Booking.com. The number of bookings from Agoda continues to fall, not only because of their 'pay upfront' policy, but because recent changes on their customer website makes it more difficult to get a list of hotels in the area of interest. (One used to be able to sort the list of hotels by distance from a point of interest, such as the nearest hotel to the airport. Agoda removed that sort by distance option...)

Simon

Interesting but

- distance option still exists on Agoda and the website hasn't changed much in year, but true that it is not so famous in EU and US

- booking is always first anywhere it seems

- your SEO company is not so good if you are not able to get room booking from your own websites, or maybe you do not pay for enough service ?

- what about Asiarooms, now dead since the French millionaire sold it to TLC ?

1. You will never outbid or out do booking sites like agoda in SEO, wasting money on SEO is pointless

Internet shop is not a hotel

2. Asiarooms ceased operations 2 weeks ago and should be offline shortly .

Not to wise to give out advice on matters you not very familiar with.

[German Viking]

Dear all,

thanks a lot for the comprehensive and useful info received so far! To answer the questions contained in a few posts: The resort is located in Khao Lak, and it is a boutique kind of holiday home place with 3 apartments/studios and 5 houses with 2br and kitchen each. Quite posh, but no stars

Cheers,

Catweazle

I can recommend "airbnb" they are the best, for several reasons.

The main reason to use them, is you can add the booking fee to the customers called "service fee" and the customer see it in advance.

There is only 1 hook, if your are an american, then issue it in another name, caused you can be taxed + to your other income.

https://www.airbnb.de/rooms/5041577?checkin=13.04.2015&checkout=20.04.2015&s=B0dP

Again terrible advice .

Air BnB is like an offer site, where you can waste your time getting offers without a single booking.

Can not help but wonder if you actually ever owned or managed a hotel or resort or a guesthouse .

Calm down catweazle offer only 6 units this is not big business, you can waste a lot of money in unnecessary advertisment. I never had a hotel or resort, but had somethings to do with marketing etc. As Mr. Henry Ford said 1 time in a meeting of the board of directors; "Gentleman I know we waste 50% of our advertisment budget, but nobody can tell me which 50%". He could be lucky today a lot of companies wasting 80% or 90% their advertisment budget like for example Samsung they spend 25% of their turnover, this is just insane and have nothing to do with proper marketing, caused this works only as long you having a big enough turnover Samsung getting already in trouble, caused of an decreasing turnover.

[German Viking]

Dear all,

thanks a lot for the comprehensive and useful info received so far! To answer the questions contained in a few posts: The resort is located in Khao Lak, and it is a boutique kind of holiday home place with 3 apartments/studios and 5 houses with 2br and kitchen each. Quite posh, but no stars

Cheers,

Catweazle

I can recommend "airbnb" they are the best, for several reasons.

The main reason to use them, is you can add the booking fee to the customers called "service fee" and the customer see it in advance.

There is only 1 hook, if your are an american, then issue it in another name, caused you can be taxed + to your other income.

https://www.airbnb.de/rooms/5041577?checkin=13.04.2015&checkout=20.04.2015&s=B0dP

Again terrible advice .

Air BnB is like an offer site, where you can waste your time getting offers without a single booking.

Can not help but wonder if you actually ever owned or managed a hotel or resort or a guesthouse .

Did your ever booked with airbnb?