How to get more direct bookings for your campsite

A booking that comes to you directly costs a card fee of a pound or two. The same booking through a booking site costs roughly 12% to 17% of its value. You won’t move every guest across, and you shouldn’t try: booking sites bring people who’d never have found you. The aim is to stop paying commission on guests who already know you, and to make your own booking page the easiest place to book. The steps that matter most are a complete Google Business Profile, a quick website with prices and live availability, a booking link everywhere guests see you, a reason for past guests to come back, honest reviews, and knowing where each booking came from.

All rules and figures were checked on 25 October 2026.

What commission really costs

Our guide to booking site fees has the full sums. In short, on a £90 stay:

Across 200 bookings a season, that’s a difference of about £1,850 to £2,700. If half of those guests had been before, or found you some other way, half of that commission bought you nothing.

One catch before you start: some booking sites limit what you can charge elsewhere. Pitchup’s rate parity rule says you can’t sell the same stay for less on your own website or by phone. Check your agreements before you offer a cheaper direct price. You can still offer things a booking site can’t, such as a returning guest reward.

1. Set up your Google Business Profile

When people search for a campsite near a place, Google shows a map of local businesses. A free Business Profile puts you there.

Google says local results are “mainly based on relevance, distance and popularity”, and that “there’s no way to request or pay for a better local ranking.” What it does recommend:

• Verify your profile, so Google treats it as yours.
• Fill in everything: address, hours, category, phone, website and attributes such as parking or Wi-Fi. Google says businesses with complete and accurate information are more likely to show up.
• Use your real name. Google’s guidelines say your name should reflect your real-world name, with no extra keywords. “Willow Farm Campsite” is fine. “Willow Farm Campsite Cheap Camping Dorset Coast” isn’t.
• Add photos of pitches, facilities and views, and keep them up to date.
• Reply to reviews, good and bad.

Then add your booking page. Google lets businesses add a booking link to their profile, and choose a “preferred link” if there’s more than one. If a booking site has added its own link, set yours as the preferred one.

2. A quick website with prices and live availability

Guests who find you on Google, Facebook or a club listing will look for your website. If they can’t see a price or whether you have space, they may go back to a booking site where they can.

What your website needs:

• Prices for each kind of pitch, with what’s included and what costs extra
• Live availability: guests pick dates and see what’s free, with a price for those dates
• Online booking and payment, with a deposit or the full amount
• Photos of the actual pitches, facilities and views
• How to find you, what’s nearby, and your rules on dogs, fires and noise
• Your cancellation policy, in plain words
• Speed on a phone. Keep photos a sensible size and pages short.

Show the full price. The CMA’s price transparency guidance says the price should normally include every mandatory charge, so a booking fee every guest pays belongs in the price you show.

3. A booking button everywhere

Put your booking link wherever guests already see you:

• the “Book” button on your Facebook page, and your Instagram profile
• your email signature and every email you send guests
• your Google Business Profile, as above
• a QR code on a sign at the gate, the noticeboard and the toilet block, so passing tourers and current guests can book on the spot
• a card or leaflet in the welcome pack: “Book your next stay direct at…”

If you already have a website you like, you can add a booking button or calendar to it instead of starting again.

4. Bring guests back

A returning guest is the cheapest booking you’ll get. A few ways to bring them back:

• Ask before they leave. Tell them next year’s dates open soon, and how to book.
• Reward loyalty. A small discount or a free extra after a few stays gives a reason to book with you, not through a booking site.
• Email them, with permission. The ICO’s rules on marketing emails allow a “soft opt-in” for your own customers. You can email someone who booked with you about similar stays, if you gave them a simple way to opt out when you took their details and in every message. Otherwise you need their consent. The ICO says the guidance is under review after the Data (Use and Access) Act.
• Don’t reuse booking site guests’ details if the site’s terms forbid it. Booking.com’s terms ban unsolicited marketing to its guests. Instead, give guests a good reason to visit your website while they’re with you.

5. Ask for reviews, honestly

Reviews on Google and your own website help new guests choose you. Ask every guest, a day or so after they leave.

The rules changed in April 2025. The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 bans fake reviews, reviews that hide that they were incentivised, and publishing reviews in a misleading way, such as removing negative reviews while publishing positive ones. The CMA’s fake reviews guidance explains what that means for businesses. In short:

• Ask everyone. The guidance says cherry-picking can happen by “encouraging just those who are satisfied to leave reviews”. Don’t send review requests only to guests you think were happy.
• Don’t hide bad reviews. Suppressing genuine negative reviews on your own website can break the law.
• Disclose any incentive. If you offer something for a review, such as a discount or a free product, the guidance says you must tell readers the review was incentivised, and it must still reflect the guest’s genuine experience.
• Check the platform’s own rules. Google’s policy bans offering incentives such as payment, discounts or free goods in exchange for any review, and bans selectively asking for positive reviews. So never offer anything for a Google review.
• Never write your own, or ask friends to.

Reply to reviews politely, especially the critical ones. Future guests read the replies.

6. Keep booking sites for discovery

Booking sites are worth their commission when they bring you someone new. Use them for that:

• Keep your listings live, especially early in the season and for quiet dates.
• Make sure guests who arrive through a booking site have a great stay and know your website’s name before they leave.
• Watch for repeat guests booking through a site out of habit. That’s the commission to win back.

Read your agreements. Pitchup asks you not to invite guests to contact you directly when replying to reviews, and Booking.com’s terms limit how you use its guests’ details.

7. Measure where bookings come from

You can’t improve what you don’t count. At the end of each month, look at:

• how many bookings came from each booking site, and how many were direct
• how many direct bookings were from returning guests
• what you paid each site in commission
• for new guests, how they found you: a “How did you hear about us?” question on your booking form helps

If one channel brings mostly returning guests, move them to direct. If another brings mostly new guests at a fair cost, keep it.

How PootlrHost helps

PootlrHost gives you a website with booking built in, with live availability and online payment. You can copy a booking link for Google and Facebook, download a QR code for your noticeboard, and add a booking button to a website you already have. It asks every guest for a review after their stay and can offer your Google review link to every guest, whatever they thought, as Google requires. Loyalty rewards can give returning guests money off or a free extra. Reports show where bookings came from, how many came direct, and an estimate of the commission you didn’t pay. See PootlrHost for small campsites.

This guide isn’t legal advice. Check the current rules before you change how you collect reviews or send marketing emails.