How the CDP First-Party Data Engine Undercuts OTA Dependency

Hotels and OTAs have been connected for a long time, and for good reason. OTAs help properties reach travelers they might never attract on their own. The tricky part comes later, when relying on those channels becomes the norm. It wouldn’t be such an issue if the cost stopped at visibility. Yet, commissions chip away at profit and the direct relationship with the guest often gets lost along the way. That’s where the balance starts to feel off. Especially when repeat business and loyalty depend on knowing your guests, not meeting them through a third party.

There’s a smarter way to shift that balance without burning bridges or blowing up acquisition costs. It starts with something surprisingly simple: owning your data and putting it to work. Understanding it and connecting it in a way that supports your direct channel. Hotels leaning into this growth hack are using Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) to effectively tackle this strategy. 

A strong CDP turns every guest touchpoint into fuel for direct bookings. With a CDP’s connected view of your guests, each interaction adds value instead of sitting in a silo. Your direct channel naturally becomes more relevant and approachable in ways an OTA simply can’t match.

Let’s break down how this works in practice.

Why Hotels Became Reliant on OTAs in the First Place

If we rewind a bit, OTA dominance isn’t a mystery. They invested billions in marketing when hotels didn’t, and they built a user experience that was smoother than most booking engines for far too long. This way, they managed to completely take over organic search. So much so that across Europe in 2024, as much as 77% of hotel online bookings were generated through OTAs, leaving a much smaller slice for direct channels.

Even though OTAs also offered instant visibility for properties that didn’t stand a chance competing alone, those wins came at a price:

• High commissions that cut straight into profit;
• Zero visibility into who your guests actually are;
• No control over repeat business;
• And one of the biggest revenue leaks in the industry: paying commission for the same guest again and again.

OTAs didn’t overpower the industry overnight. Hotels simply didn’t have the tools or data to compete for the relationship. However, now they do.

What a CDP Actually Does (and Why It Matters)

A hospitality CDP is essentially your data brain. It connects the dots between systems that were never designed to talk to each other. PMS, booking engine, CXP interactions, surveys, messaging, point-of-sale activity, and so on. This way, everything flows into one place and becomes one rich, living profile of each guest.

Instead of having fragments scattered across your tech stack, you get a complete picture of each guest’s journey. Who they are, how they behave and what they respond to.

A few things get possible once this is in place. For instance, you can turn anonymous website visitors into known contacts, track repeat OTA bookers and shift them toward direct, trigger automated communication that actually feels relevant, and spot long-term trends your team would never catch manually.

Hotels suddenly get real audience ownership, while reducing costs.

How First-Party Data Cuts OTA Reliance (Quietly but Powerfully)

The shift starts to happen in hundreds of tiny moments where your direct channel becomes smarter and more appealing to your potential guests.

Stronger Personalization Than Any OTA Can Offer

OTAs pretend they know your guests, but they only see one slice of their journey. With a CDP, you see it all, which enables you to tap into things like stay patterns, room-type preferences, trip reasons, booking windows, on-property habits, survey sentiments, and much more.

Once you have that, your teams are able to market offers through personalized touchpoints. You can match the right message to the right person at the right moment. OTAs simply can’t compete with this level of relevance.

Campaigns That Bring Guests Back to Your Direct Channels

With a CDP, segmentation becomes effortless and you can run campaigns based on actual behavior and data-backed targeting, not guesses. 

Think along the lines of:

• Past guests who always book weekends;
• Last-minute travelers;
• High-value guests who respond to upgrades;
• Loyalty-curious guests who haven’t taken the leap.

Simply put, you’ll be sending fewer emails but getting better results. And your direct bookings start climbing.

Stop Paying Commission for Repeat Guests

Plenty of repeat guests come back more often than teams realize, especially when they book through different OTA accounts. A CDP helps surface that behavior, making it easier to follow up with direct-first offers, retargeting and loyalty-driven messages.

It’s one of the biggest and easiest ways to lower OTA dependency without adding a single euro to acquisition costs.

A Healthier Funnel Than OTAs Can Ever Give You

When you combine CDP data with AI Agents, on-site personalization, and smart messaging, something interesting happens. Your funnel starts to feel smoother. Faster. More human. Guests get answers in seconds, personalized guidance, and fewer hoops to jump through.

Guests find the path to booking directly more straightforward, helping you capture their loyalty without extra friction.

Related read: The 24/7 AI Hotel Booking Assistant: The New Engine Behind Always-On Direct Revenue

The Financial Impact

Here’s the part that surprises many teams: the impact doesn’t show up just in a single campaign. In reality, it compounds, because better data leads to better targeting, which in turn leads to higher direct conversions, creating more first-party data, which at the same time leads to even smarter campaigns.

And suddenly, a few percentage points in direct share turn into real, meaningful revenue. It’s the flywheel effect the industry has been missing.

Where Hotels Often Mess Up: Random Experiments Without Data

Too many teams jump into “improving direct bookings” with blind optimism. They send a newsletter here, tweak the offer page there, or launch a halfhearted campaign with a discount that undercuts RevPAR.

Without unified data, these efforts are basically shots in the dark since they don’t build long-term knowledge and they don’t scale. A CDP, in contrast, gives you clarity so you stop guessing and start running strategies that actually move the needle.

How TrustYou’s CDP and Hospitality AI Drives This Shift

TrustYou’s CDP, specifically built for your hospitality tech stack, is the connective tissue that brings your data, automations, AI Agents, and guest comms into one real engine:

• The CDP builds the unified profile;
• AI Agents use that profile to convert and assist with context;
• The CXP automates touchpoints across the journey.

Everything works together to help you own the guest relationship instead of outsourcing it.

This is how you cut OTA reliance and boost your profits. You make your direct channel more compelling, more consistent, and more intelligent than anything an OTA can offer.

Final Thought: OTAs Won’t Disappear, but Your Reliance on Them Can

You don’t need to break up with OTAs. You just need to stop letting them own your guests for you. The hotels thriving right now have one thing in common: they’re building a strong first-party data engine that steadily shifts power back into their hands.

If you’re ready to see how your hotel can make the same move, it’s worth exploring what a modern CDP can unlock for your direct revenue.

Book a demo and see how the TrustYou platform helps you take back control without increasing your workload.

About TrustYou

TrustYou is the #1 Hospitality AI platform. Since 2008, the company has supported hotels and hotel groups worldwide in turning guest feedback, customer data, and automated interactions into measurable results. The platform unifies three core products in one system:

At the core of TrustYouʼs platform are three powerful solutions:

• Customer Experience Platform CXP: Centralizes all reviews and surveys, applies AI-driven analysis, and automatically responds to feedback with ResponseAI. Hotels gain deeper insights into the guest experience, strengthen their online reputation, and make more informed service decisions.
• Customer Data Platform CDP: Consolidates all guest data into so-called Golden Profiles, integrates consent management, and enables precise audience segmentation. This powers personalized marketing campaigns, drives more direct bookings, and fosters long-term guest loyalty.
• AI Agents: Handle 100% of inbound communication—24/7, in any language, and across all channels. They deliver instant, context-aware responses, support upselling, and free up operational teams.

With TrustYou, hotels invest in a future-ready platform that makes the Always-Reply Future a reality: better guest experiences, more direct revenue, and more efficient operations. For more information please visit www.trustyou.com.

Contact:
TrustYou
Alisa Kellermann
[email protected]
www.trustyou.com