Does My Homestay Need a Website If It's Already on MakeMyTrip and Airbnb?

Every homestay owner on the Udupi coast knows the feeling. December is full, the reviews are good, and then the payout arrives with a commission taken off every stay. That includes the family who came last year and would have come back anyway.

So it's a fair question: would a website of your own win some of that back?

Here's the honest answer. It starts with what the booking sites do better than any website I could build you.

What the booking sites are genuinely good at

MakeMyTrip, Goibibo, Booking.com and Airbnb (OTAs, if you've heard the term) do three things a website can't:

• Finding strangers. A family in Bengaluru planning a beach weekend has never heard of you. When I searched "homestay in malpe" in September 2026, Google's first page was MakeMyTrip, Goibibo, Booking.com, Agoda, Airbnb and directories like Justdial. The only individual homestays anywhere on it were Instagram and Facebook reels. Not a single homestay's own website.
• Trust from people who've never met you. A few hundred reviews from verified stays count for more with a stranger than anything you can write about yourself.
• Handling the money. Payments, refunds and cancellations are somebody else's problem, and guests like knowing that.

The first point settles something up front. A website will not put you on page one for "homestay in malpe". Those results belong to companies listing thousands of properties, with years of links pointing at them. If someone promises you that ranking, ask what happens when it doesn't arrive.

Keep your listings.

The commission you're paying for nothing

A commission makes sense when a platform finds you a guest you'd never have met. It's charged just the same when it didn't.

Think about who actually books you through the app:

• The family from last December, who couldn't find your number, so they searched the app again
• The friend of a past guest, who was given your name and typed it into MakeMyTrip because that's where the Book button is
• The couple who saw your place on Instagram and went to a booking site to check the price

Each of them found you first. The platform only took the booking, and it charged the same commission it charges on a stranger.

Work it out with your own numbers rather than anyone's average, mine included. Open last month's payout statement, add up the commission and multiply by twelve. Then ask how many of those stays were guests who already knew you. If your rate works out to 15%, every ₹3,000 night hands over ₹450. Ten nights a month from people who already knew you is ₹4,500 a month spent on bookings you'd already earned.

One more line worth finding on that statement: some platforms split their fee, adding part of it to the guest's price instead of taking it all from you. Airbnb does this. It won't show as a deduction, but your guest pays more than the rate you set.

What guests do once they've found you

This is where a website earns its money, and Google shows it happening.

Start typing a search for a Malpe homestay and look at what Google suggests. "Contact number" is one of the suggestions. People are trying to reach owners directly: to ask something the listing doesn't answer, to see whether booking direct is cheaper, or just to talk to a person before sending money.

What they find when they search your homestay's name decides where that booking goes:

1. Only your listings. They go back to the app and book there, and you pay commission on a guest who was trying to reach you.
2. A Facebook page from 2021 and no number. They wonder whether you're still open. Some of them book somewhere else.
3. Your own site. Your rooms, your rates, your WhatsApp number. They message you.

Your homestay's name is a search you can actually win, because the results competing for it are mostly your own listings. Put that name in your site's title and link the site from your Google Maps listing, if you have one, and once Google has indexed it the site usually shows up alongside them. It's the same moment an Instagram follower Googles a business before buying, with a room instead of a product.

The same problem on a Greek island

Two of the client sites on my work page are for places people stay, and both are on Greek islands rather than the Karnataka coast. The problem there is the same: guests find the place through booking sites, and every stay booked there costs a cut.

The Fortress is two stone villas on Antiparos, and its brief had no booking engine in it at all. The site's whole job was to show the place as it really is and end in a written enquiry. The owner, Georgios, put the result better than I can:

Guests arrive expecting exactly what the site shows — that's never happened before. More direct bookings, fewer OTA fees, and guests who are already in the right mindset when they walk in.

— Georgios, The Fortress, Antiparos

Notice that the fees aren't the first thing mentioned. It's that guests arrived expecting what they found. A listing shows you in a format built for comparing you with the place next door. A site gives you room to show the place honestly, and guests who know what they're walking into are easier to host.

What the site actually needs

Not twenty pages, and not a booking engine to start with. It needs to answer the questions guests search before they commit, and Google's suggestions for Udupi homestays show you what those are: near the beach, near the temple, good for families.

1. Every room, photographed honestly. Bathrooms included. A guest who walks into exactly what they saw has nothing to be disappointed about.
2. Rates, or an honest range by season. "Message for price" is where direct enquiries go to die.
3. Exactly where you are. A map, and the distances your guests care about: the beach, the Krishna temple, Manipal, the station.
4. Who it suits. Families, couples or groups. Home-cooked meals if you serve them, parking, AC, and whether pets are welcome.
5. How booking direct works. How much advance you take, how to pay it (UPI is fine) and what happens if they cancel. This is what makes booking with you feel as safe as booking through an app.
6. A WhatsApp button, with your number written out as well. Some guests will want to copy it or call.

And it has to load fast on a phone. A slow site loses exactly the guest who was ready to book.

Turn every app guest into a direct guest next time

The listing found them once. It doesn't need to be paid for their second stay.

• Hand it over in person. A card at checkout or a note in the room, with your website and WhatsApp number. Keep it out of the app's messages: some platforms forbid pointing guests elsewhere there, and your listing is worth more than one direct booking.
• Put the link wherever your name already appears. Your Google Maps listing, your Instagram bio, your WhatsApp Business profile.
• Give people a reason to come direct. Check your contract before charging less on your own site than on the app, because some platforms restrict it. You can always offer what an app can't: early check-in when the room is free, breakfast included, the same room as last time.

When the listings are enough on their own

This is true more often than a web designer would like to admit.

Skip the website this year if you rent out a single room now and then, or if nearly every guest really is a stranger the app found for you. Skip it, too, if you can't answer WhatsApp messages quickly. A direct enquiry that sits unanswered until evening books somewhere else.

And if you're full all year through the apps and the commission doesn't bother you, that's a business decision, not a mistake.

Questions people actually ask

Will a website get me bookings from Google?

From people searching for your homestay by name: yes, soon after Google indexes it. From people searching "homestay in udupi": rarely, and not for a long time. Those results belong to the booking sites, and ranking for competitive searches takes months even when everything is done right.

Do I need online payments or a booking engine?

Not to start. A WhatsApp conversation and an advance over UPI is enough for a small homestay. Both of those Greek sites were built to end in a message, not a checkout. Add a booking engine later, if the messages ever become more than you can keep up with.

Isn't Instagram enough?

It's good for being seen. But it's rented, it doesn't answer searches, and your rates end up buried in a highlight nobody taps. The longer answer is here.

What does a site like this cost?

What a small business website costs in India has its own post. For a homestay, the useful comparison is that price against one year of commission on guests who already knew you.

Who should own the domain?

You: registered in your name, on your account, even if someone else builds the site. Ten minutes will tell you whether that's true today.

Booking sites are a good way to meet guests. They're an expensive way to keep them.

If you run a homestay around Udupi and want an honest opinion on whether a website would pay for itself, let's talk. If the answer is no, I'll tell you.