"How many channels does your hotel have?" is a question most GMs answer wrong by a factor of three. They count the OTAs and the booking engine and stop. The real number is 14-22 places a guest can complete a booking, each with its own cost, control profile, and visibility settings — and a hotel that does not map all of them is leaking money on rooms it did sell.
Category 1: OTA (Online Travel Agency)
The Booking.com / Expedia / Agoda / Hotels.com layer. High-traffic, high-commission (12-22% depending on the OTA and your contract), high-velocity. Most hotels get 30-55% of their roomnight volume through this category. For Turkish properties, add Cari (Tatilbudur, Etstur) — domestic OTAs that often have stronger conversion than international OTAs for TR-origin guests.
Category 2: GDS (Global Distribution System)
Sabre, Amadeus, Travelport. The plumbing that connects corporate travel programs and traditional travel agents to your inventory. Less visible to leisure guests, critical for corporate transient. Cost per booking is lower than OTA (typically a flat fee + small commission, totaling 8-12%) but volume is also lower outside corporate-heavy properties.
Category 3: Direct web
Your own booking engine, embedded on your own website. The cheapest channel by far (payment processing + booking engine fee, typically 3-5%). The channel you want to grow. Also the channel most hotels under-invest in because the team that runs it (e-commerce, marketing) is different from the team that obsesses about distribution cost (revenue).
Category 4: Direct voice / email
Reception phone bookings, reservations@ email bookings. Zero commission. Highest staff cost per booking. Often the conversion channel for VIPs and repeat guests, which is why it deserves a trained reservations team even if volume is low.
Category 5: Wholesale / tour operator
TUI, Coral Travel, Anex Tour, Cari wholesale, Hotelbeds bedbank. Sold months in advance at a net-of-commission rate that is 18-28% below your BAR. Fills shoulder and low seasons. Dangerous if it leaks into peak — the wholesale rate ending up on a metasearch comparison kills your direct conversion.
Category 6: Group / MICE
Direct contracts for blocks of 10+ rooms — conferences, weddings, sports teams, tour groups. Negotiated rates with concessions (meeting space, F&B credits, complimentary upgrades). The segment with the longest lead time and the highest revenue predictability.
A hotel with 6 channel categories has 6 different cost-per-booking math problems. Solve each one separately.