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Hotels could be losing up to 20% of room revenues on some bookings due to high OTA commissions, rate discrepancies and gaps between key distribution systems, according to analysis from hotel technology providers Net Affinity and Smarthotel. OTA commissions alone range from 15% to 25%. The finding lands at a moment when UK operators are already squeezed by empty tables and rising staffing costs, making every lost point of margin harder to absorb.
For vendors selling into hospitality, the number is a buying trigger. A hotel losing a fifth of revenue on a channel has a measurable, urgent reason to invest in direct booking engines, channel management and rate integrity tools. That is a sharper pitch than a general claim about digital transformation.
Where the revenue leaks
Fiona Cooper, client solutions and integration consultant at Net Affinity, framed the problem in system terms. "Hotels are working incredibly hard to optimise their rates and drive demand, but too often revenue is lost in the gaps between systems, channels and booking journeys," she said. "The most visible booking is not always the most profitable one. Once commission, discounts, redistribution and booking journey performance are taken into account, hoteliers need to look closely at the true value of each channel."
Net Affinity and Smarthotel provide booking technology and digital marketing solutions to hotels across the UK and Ireland. Their analysis points to a specific failure mode: a rate that is correct in one system but stale in another, or a restriction that has not propagated, quietly shifting a booking from direct to commission-bearing.
Cooper was direct about the fix. "Direct bookings remain one of the strategic routes to profitable growth, but they need to be actively protected. That means having a fast, mobile-first booking journey, clear value for guests and confidence that rates and restrictions are aligned across every platform."
The commercial logic is simple. A hotel paying 20% commission on a £150 room gives away £30. If a direct booking engine costs less than that per booking, the case closes itself. Vendors selling booking, channel management or rate integrity software should lead with that arithmetic, not feature lists.
Empty tables, not VAT
The revenue-leakage story lands against a wider argument about what actually hurts UK hospitality. Dev Biswal, owner of The Cook's Tale in Canterbury, has pushed back on the industry's VAT campaign, which has collected more than 300,000 signatures demanding the government halve the tax on pubs, restaurants and hotels from 20% to 10%.
Biswal's position is contrarian and worth reading closely. "A lower rate of VAT would undoubtedly help many businesses, but after operating restaurants every day, I believe we are asking the wrong question," he said. "It is whether many restaurants are commercially viable before tax is even calculated. That is the elephant in the room. A business that loses money before VAT is added will still struggle after a VAT reduction. Tax relief treats a symptom; it does not cure the disease."
His core point is operational. "As a restaurant owner, I worry far more about empty tables than VAT. A full restaurant can absorb many rising costs. An empty restaurant cannot."
More than 70% of operators identified VAT, food-and-drink inflation and rising staffing costs as the principal threats to hospitality businesses across the UK. Prime Minister Andy Burnham announced a 20% cut in business rates for pubs and live-music venues during his first week in office.
For vendors, Biswal's framing matters because it shifts the sales conversation from tax policy, which operators cannot control, to revenue and efficiency, which they can. A POS system that turns tables faster, a booking platform that fills empty seats, a payment terminal that cuts transaction friction: these are the tools that address the empty-table problem directly.
TouchBistro pushes handheld POS
TouchBistro has launched TouchBistro One, a handheld device for restaurant staff that combines ordering, payments and receipt printing in one product. Aimed at full-service restaurants, it is designed to work with the company's mobile-first point-of-sale system.
Basil Abou Aishi, Vice President of Technology at TouchBistro, said the device was developed around the way restaurant staff work during service rather than by shrinking an existing product. "Rather than simply adapting our existing POS to a smaller form factor, we designed TouchBistro One specifically around the way restaurant staff move through service, bringing ordering, payments and receipt printing together in a single device that helps teams stay focused on delivering great hospitality."
TouchBistro is positioning the device as a response to common operational problems, including payment delays, slower table turnover and the cost of maintaining multiple pieces of hardware. The company said combining several functions in one unit may reduce hardware spending for some operators, particularly those that would otherwise buy separate ordering devices, card terminals and receipt printers.
The launch signals competitive pressure in the mobile POS segment. UK vendors selling into full-service restaurants should expect operators to ask whether their existing stack can match a single-device ordering and payment flow. The table-turnover argument is the same one Biswal makes from the operator side: speed and occupancy, not tax, drive viability.
A note on Peach Data
Peach Data provides verified, TPS-screened contact data across thousands of UK hospitality venues, helping vendors reach the operators who are actively rethinking their booking, payment and POS stacks. peachdata.co.uk