# Websites for bed & breakfasts

> Websites for B&Bs and guest houses that turn guests who found you on a booking site into guests who book direct next time, and give new ones a reason to skip the commission.

- Source: https://nerdsharks.com/industries/bed-and-breakfasts
- Publisher: Nerdsharks (Exeter, Devon, UK)
- Updated: 2026-09-27

There are 10,590 hotels, guest houses and similar serviced accommodation across 367 UK local authorities (ONS UK Business Counts, SIC 55100, 2025, OGL v3.0).

## How customers choose

Most B&B guests find you first on an online travel agent - Booking.com, Airbnb, Expedia - because that is where they start searching for a date and a place. A large share of them then look up your own website before booking, to see the rooms properly, check the breakfast, and see whether it is cheaper or more flexible to book direct. That moment is the whole commercial case for a B&B website: every guest who books direct saves the commission on the stay. Guests choose on room photographs, the breakfast, parking, whether dogs are allowed, how far it is to the thing they are visiting, and whether the host seems like someone they would like. Returning guests, walkers doing a route, wedding guests and people visiting family nearby book direct readily if it is easy. Older guests still phone, and they want a real name and a number.

## What most websites in this trade get wrong

The typical B&B website either has no booking at all ("email us for availability") or a clunky booking widget that shows different prices from the booking sites. Both send the guest back to the OTA, where booking takes two taps. A direct site has to be at least as easy: live availability, clear prices, and a visible reason to book direct - a better rate, a free late checkout, a welcome tray. Availability also has to stay in sync with the OTAs through a channel manager, or you will double-book the same room. The other failure is photography: dark, wide-angle phone pictures of rooms make a lovely house look like a budget motel, and room photographs decide the booking more than anything else on the page.

## What the website has to do

- **Direct room booking** - Every direct booking avoids the OTA commission on that stay.
- **Repeat guests booking direct** - A guest who stayed via a booking site is the easiest direct booking you will get next year.
- **Phone and email enquiries** - Group, long-stay and older guests often want to talk first.

## Pages

- **Home** - Check availability, the book-direct benefit, and what makes the house worth staying at.
- **Rooms** - Each room with its own photographs, bed size, bathroom and price.
- **Breakfast** - What is served, local suppliers, and dietary options.
- **Book direct** - Live availability and payment, with the direct-booking benefits stated.
- **Local area** - Walks, attractions, pubs and how far each one is.
- **Getting here** - Parking, check-in times, and directions for the last mile.
- **House policies** - Dogs, children, cancellation and deposits, stated plainly.

## Features that matter

- **Direct booking engine with live availability** - Without it the guest goes back to the OTA to finish booking.
- **Channel manager sync with the booking sites** - Prevents double bookings when a room sells on two platforms.
- **A stated reason to book direct** - Guests compare prices; give them something the OTA cannot.
- **Bright, properly lit room photographs, one set per room** - Room photographs decide the booking.
- **Clear cancellation and deposit policy** - The thing guests check before paying a small business directly.
- **Distances to the places guests are actually visiting** - Guests book B&Bs for a reason nearby; answer it.

Trust signals: VisitEngland or AA star rating, where assessed; Real photographs of every room; Food hygiene rating for the breakfast kitchen; Clear cancellation policy; Named hosts.

Seasonality: Coastal and rural B&Bs are driven by school holidays and summer weekends; city B&Bs follow events and business travel. Winter is quiet, which makes shoulder-season direct offers worth building for.

## Local authorities with the most

| Local authority | Businesses |
|---|---|
| Westminster | 555 |
| Highland | 315 |
| North Yorkshire | 235 |
| Cornwall | 205 |
| Westmorland and Furness | 175 |
| City of Edinburgh | 155 |
| Camden | 150 |
| Blackpool | 145 |
| Kensington and Chelsea | 135 |
| South Lakeland | 130 |

## The offer

- **Monthly**: £299 upfront, £99/month (the upfront is a setup fee), 12-month minimum term. We build it, host it and look after it - and after 24 monthly payments, it is yours.
- **Own It**: £1,795 upfront, £49/month, no minimum term. Buy the website outright. It is yours to keep, move or cancel.
- **Pro**: £6,950 upfront, £299/month, 12-month minimum term. No limits. For large, multi-site and fast-growing businesses.
- Payment: The setup fee is paid when you book, and it starts the design. Monthly fees are collected by Direct Debit, covered by the Direct Debit Guarantee, from the day your site goes live.
- Guarantee: You see your finished design on your phone and approve it before anything goes live, with two full rounds of changes included. Nothing launches until you are happy with it. The Monthly plan runs for 12 months from launch.
- Bolt-ons: Google Business Profile management £29/month; Local SEO pack £49/month; Business email £5/month. Coming soon, not yet on sale: Missed-call text back, Review booster.
- VAT: We are not VAT registered, so there is no VAT to add to these prices.

## Questions

### How do I get more guests to book direct instead of through Booking.com?

Make booking on your own site as easy as the booking site and give guests a visible reason to do it. That means live availability, clear prices, secure payment, and a direct-booking benefit such as a better rate, flexible cancellation or a welcome treat, where your agreements with the booking sites allow it. Returning guests are the easiest group to move to direct booking.

### How do I avoid double bookings between my website and the booking sites?

Use a channel manager or a booking system that syncs availability with every platform you sell through. When a room is booked on one channel, it closes on the others automatically. Updating calendars by hand works until the busiest weekend of the year, which is exactly when it fails.

### Can you add online booking?

Yes. Every plan includes a booking-request form, live-availability booking can be added to any plan (quoted on your call) and comes as standard on Pro, and we can connect whichever booking system suits your business rather than forcing you onto ours. For appointment businesses it is usually the highest-return feature on the site, because the phone going unanswered while you are working is a constant source of lost bookings.