Table of contents
From side activity to business
For years holiday rentals were a secondary activity: an inherited apartment, a second home by the sea, a few weeks let out in summer. The portals were enough: you uploaded photos, bookings arrived, you paid the commission.
That picture has changed. In the Veneto the self-catering sector has overtaken hotels in overnight stays, and in Jesolo alone holiday lets passed 1.2 million overnight stays in 2025, roughly a quarter of the total. This is no longer a niche: it is half of regional tourism.
And from 2026 anyone managing more than two units must register for VAT. It is the formal step that follows the substantive one: if you run several units you are an accommodation operator, and your guests judge you by the same standards they apply to a hotel.
The real cost of the portals
Booking portal commissions generally sit between 15% and 20% per booking, depending on the plan and the visibility you choose. On an apartment generating 30,000 euro a year, that is between 4,500 and 6,000 euro going out.
The point is not to demonise the portals: they bring volume, visibility and guests who would never find you otherwise. Those who cut them out entirely almost always lose.
The point is proportion. If 100% of your bookings come through them, you are a supplier to another company: you do not know your guests, you do not have their contact details, and you cannot bring them back except through the same door. Shifting even a quarter of your bookings to the direct channel changes the numbers and gives you back the relationship with the client.
What the website actually needs
A holiday rental website is not a shop window with a few photos. It has to do four concrete things.
The property catalogue. Every unit with its own page: photos, size, beds, amenities, location. If you have five apartments you need five pages, not one gallery. These are the pages that rank for specific searches like "sea view apartment in Jesolo for four people".
Up-to-date availability. A calendar showing what is free and when. Updated by hand it lasts two weeks, then someone books an occupied date and you spend your time apologising. It needs a connection to your management system.
An easy way to enquire. Not everyone wants to pay online straight away: many prefer to ask about availability and get a reply. A form collecting dates, number of guests and contact details converts better than a complicated booking engine.
Your guests' languages. On Lake Garda and the Veneto coast that means German before English. One property page in German is worth more than ten Italian pages nobody searches for.
The channel manager: why it does not work without one
If you list the same units on several portals and on your own site, you have a synchronisation problem: the same room sold twice is a disaster that costs you a bad review and a refund.
The channel manager solves this: it is the software that keeps availability and rates aligned across every channel. When a booking arrives from a portal, the unit disappears automatically from all the others and from your own site.
Systems like Octorate also cover the administrative obligations that apply to letting in Italy: guest registration, tourist tax, documentation. The website should be connected to the system you already use, not built alongside it and updated separately.
Google Free Booking Links
There is one channel many operators overlook and that costs no commission: Google's free booking links.
When someone searches for your property, or for accommodation in an area, Google can show availability and prices directly in the results, with a link to your own site alongside those of the portals. The direct link is free.
It does not replace the portals and it does not work on its own: it requires a site with current availability and a booking path that actually works. But for anyone who already has that infrastructure it is additional visibility at zero cost, in the same place where portals pay to appear.
Getting found: search here is local and seasonal
People looking for a holiday rental search by place and feature: "Bibione apartment seafront", "Jesolo holiday home with pool", "Sirmione studio for two". These are specific searches, with lower competition than generic ones and far higher intent.
That is why the catalogue should be built as separate pages: each property captures the searches that match it.
Seasonality has to be played early. Summer bookings are decided between January and March, winter ones in autumn. A website published in May for the summer arrives when the decisions have already been made: content needs to be ready months ahead, because ranking takes time.
Where to start
If you manage one or two units, a full website may be oversized. It makes more sense to look after your portal listings, open a Google Business Profile for the property and collect reviews.
If you manage three or more, and therefore fall under the new obligation, the website becomes infrastructure: catalogue, availability linked to your management system, direct enquiries. The return is measured in commissions not paid, and at those volumes it pays for itself quickly.
If you manage other people's properties, as a property manager, the website is also a commercial tool aimed at owners: it shows how you promote their units and with what results.
In every case the right question is not "how much does a website cost", but how much you are leaving to the portals and how much of that you can recover. That tells you whether it makes sense, and how much to invest.