What share of hotel bookings comes through OTAs in Spain?

At independent hotels, 76.7% of bookings arrive via OTA, according to the Cloudbeds report built on 90 million reservations across 180 countries (2025 data). It is the third-highest share in the world, after Portugal (79.7%) and Indonesia (77.9%). The global average is 63.4%.

Do OTA bookings get cancelled more than direct ones?

Yes, roughly twice as much: 21.9% cancellations on OTA bookings versus 10.6% on the direct channel globally (Cloudbeds, 2025). Spain is also the country with the highest OTA cancellation rate in the world, at 26.6%.

Spain, the world's third most OTA-dependent country

Q: How much does OTA dependence cost a hotel?

Typical commissions range from 15% to 25% of the booking price. For a typical 40-room hotel with an average rate of 120 euros, distribution specialist Kerwyn Arias estimates between 50,000 and 100,000 euros a year in commissions (2026). On top of that, the sector's acquisition cost grew 25% between 2019 and 2025, faster than RevPAR (+19%).

Three out of four bookings at an independent Spanish hotel arrive through an OTA. That is not an industry feeling: it is the figure from the annual Cloudbeds report, built on 90 million reservations across 180 countries. Spain, at 76.7% dependence, is the third country in the world where intermediation weighs the most, behind only Portugal (79.7%) and Indonesia (77.9%). The global average sits at 63.4% — and rising: it was 61% in 2024.

Cloudbeds sells hotel software, so its reports should be read with that in mind. But the sample is enormous, the series is consistent year after year, and no other public study offers this level of country detail.

What that dependence costs

A typical OTA commission runs between 15% and 25% of the booking price. In euros: for a typical 40-room hotel with an average rate of 120 euros, distribution specialist Kerwyn Arias estimates between 50,000 and 100,000 euros per year in commissions (2026). That is one or two salaries, every year, paid for guests who in many cases already knew the hotel.

And the bill grows faster than the business: hotel acquisition costs rose 25% between 2019 and 2025, against RevPAR growth of 19% over the same period (Cloudbeds, 2026). Acquiring a guest is getting more expensive faster than room revenue is growing.

The second problem: cancellations

There is a less visible cost than the commission. Globally, bookings arriving via OTA get cancelled twice as often as direct ones: 21.9% versus 10.6% (Cloudbeds, 2025). And here Spain is not third: it is first. With a 26.6% cancellation rate on OTA bookings, it leads the world ranking, ahead of Brazil (25.6%) and the United Kingdom (18.3%).

One nuance gives some breathing room: the average cancellation lead time has been growing — from 34.6 days in 2023 to close to 39 in 2025 — leaving more margin to resell the room. But the underlying pattern is clear: the intermediated booking is more fragile than the direct one.

The good news hidden in the data

Not everything pushes against you. The "billboard effect" still works: 18% of those who start searching on an OTA end up booking directly with the hotel, a figure that grew 3.3 points in the last year (Changing Traveller Report 2026, run by SiteMinder with Kantar on some 12,000 travellers — another vendor, also with published methodology). And when given the option clearly, 62% of travellers prefer to book direct (Simon-Kucher, 2026, survey of more than 10,000 travellers in 10 markets).

In other words: demand for the direct channel exists. What usually fails is the supply side — a slow website, a booking engine full of friction, no tangible advantage for skipping the middleman.

What a hotel can do (without declaring war on Booking)

After fifteen years working travel distribution at a tour operator, across B2B and B2C channels, my reading is that the realistic goal is not to eliminate the OTA but to shift the mix a few points. Every percentage point that moves from intermediated to direct is recovered margin and, above all, a guest whose data is yours. Where to start:

Exclusive, visible advantages on the direct channel. If booking on your website offers nothing better — flexibility, service, some perk — the user will end up where they started searching.
A website that matches the OTA. Fast, with clear prices and conditions, and a booking flow without unnecessary steps. The 18% arriving from the OTA billboard is lost if your own site disappoints.
Capture the guest's data even when the booking arrives intermediated, and work it afterwards with email and repeat offers: the second stay can be direct.
Prepare for the next board. AI assistants already recommend hotels leaning mostly on OTAs and reviews; a website exposing clear, verifiable data also competes better on that terrain.

The underlying question

A 76.7% dependence was not built in a year and will not be reversed in a year. But the 2025-2026 data draws a particular moment: commissions are rising, intermediated cancellations are breaking records, and at the same time most travellers say they would rather book direct if it were made easy. Rarely have the problem and the opportunity been so well documented at once.