Booking.com commission in Morocco: what a riad really pays, and how direct bookings cut it

The Booking.com commission in Morocco is between 15 and 17% of each booking's value, according to Hespress, and it goes up when a property wants more visibility in the results. Since October 2024, Moroccan partners can pay it in dirhams. Below: what that adds up to for a riad in a year, and how direct bookings cut it without leaving Booking.

You know the scene. End of the month, the Booking invoice arrives, you open it next to your mint tea, and the tea goes cold. Then you spot a name on the list: the couple who stayed last spring, and the spring before. They hugged you at the door. They also booked through the app. Again.

Nobody did anything wrong. But that last line is the one this post is about.

How much is the Booking.com commission in Morocco?#

The figures for Morocco come from the press. Hespress reported in August 2023 that Booking takes between 15 and 17% of a booking's value, and that the percentage can go up if the property wants more visibility and to appear on the first pages of results. A few weeks earlier, hotel professionals quoted by Hespress said the commissions go up to 20% of the bill paid by the guest.

When is it charged? Booking's own page says it plainly: once the stay is finished, the property pays a commission. The bill arrives after the guest has gone home.

Why it matters so much: a 2019 survey by the tourism ministry estimated that 60% of accommodation bookings are made online, "a percentage that has certainly increased since", as minister Fatim-Zahra Ammor told Médias24 in June 2024. Not all of those go through Booking, but it shows how much of a riad's year now starts on a screen.

Why do some properties pay a higher commission?#

Visibility on Booking works a bit like a stall in the souk: the spot by the entrance costs more than the one at the back of the alley. Booking says so itself. On its page about how it works, the thumbs-up badge marks properties in its Preferred Partner programme, and:

They pay us a higher commission if you make a booking.

The same page lists things that can influence where a property ranks in the results, including:

How much commission they pay us on bookings, how quickly they usually pay it, whether they're part of our Genius programme or Preferred Partner (+) Programme.

In plain words: part of your position in the list is bought with commission. That's the "more for visibility" Hespress mentioned. Before you join a visibility programme, put the extra percentage into your own numbers and see what it costs over a year.

Can you pay the Booking.com commission in dirhams?#

Yes, since October 2024. The story starts a year earlier. In 2023, Booking required Moroccan partners to pay their commissions in foreign currency. The FNIH, which represents 4,000 classified hotels, said this added a 10% withholding-tax cost on top. Paying a commission is one thing; paying a tax for paying it is another.

Then, Médias24 reported on 7 October 2024 that Booking now lets Moroccan partners pay commissions in dirhams, through a local bank account. It started as a test with some properties, to be extended to all of them. If you still pay in foreign currency, ask Booking whether the dirham option is open for your property.

Can you negotiate the Booking.com commission?#

On paper, yes. In the same Médias24 interview, the minister explained that commissions are set in a private contract between the two parties, and that the hotel "is free to negotiate" its clauses. She also said Booking gives Moroccan properties "access to a world market", which is worth remembering before you get angry at the invoice.

Free to negotiate isn't the same as getting a discount, of course. Your strongest card in that conversation is not needing Booking for every single guest. Which brings us to the numbers.

How much does a riad pay in a year? A worked example#

Here is an example, with the starting values of my free Booking.com commission calculator. They are example figures, not anyone's real riad: 8 rooms, 900 MAD a night on average, 60% occupancy, 70% of nights booked through booking sites, and a 17% commission (the top of the Hespress range).

1. 8 rooms × 365 nights × 60% occupancy = 1,752 nights sold in a year.
2. 70% of them through booking sites = about 1,226 nights.
3. At 900 MAD a night, those nights are worth about 1.1 million MAD.
4. At 17%, the example riad pays about 187,600 MAD of commission a year, or about 15,600 MAD a month.

Now say a quarter of those guests booked with you directly instead. In this example, that's about 46,900 MAD a year that stays in the riad. It's a number worth reading sitting down.

One detail: the calculator counts all booking sites together (Booking.com, Expedia, Airbnb) at the rate you choose. Change every value to your own and you get your own figure: work out your commission in the calculator.

Keep Booking for new guests, win back the ones who already know you#

Booking is a very good shop window. A traveller who has never heard of your riad finds you there, and that's what the commission pays for. Keep it.

The Booking.com commission that hurts is the one paid on guests who already know you: the couple who comes back every year, the friend a past guest sent your way, the family who saved your name. Paying the shop window every time your regulars walk in through your own front door is the part you can change.

What gives those guests a direct way back:

• Your own website with a booking request form. Dates, room, number of guests, a phone number, and you confirm. That's enough for a riad with a handful of rooms; I explain the pages in riad website design.
• WhatsApp. One number, on the website, on a card in the room and on the bill. A guest can save it and write to you next year.
• Your Google Business Profile. A returning guest may well type your riad's name into Google. Make sure the profile links to your own site, so the first button they see leads to you.
• Instagram. Put your website in the bio, not only a booking site link. People who follow you already know your riad.
• Reply fast. If a guest writes to you and waits a day for an answer, the Booking app is one tap away.

None of this takes Booking away. It just gives the guests who already like you a shorter road back.

What a direct booking page looks like#

Caravanserai Marrakech is a project of mine. Guests can request a stay straight from the site, and every restaurant, treatment and event has its own page, so each one can be found on Google for its own search.

I can't promise how many of your guests will book direct; that depends on your riad and on who stays with you. What a site like this does is make the direct road exist, so the guests who want it can take it.

Want more direct bookings for your riad?#

Start with the calculator and your own numbers. If you run a riad or a small hotel and the figure makes you want a website that takes direct booking requests, send me your numbers and your Booking page, and I'll reply with what to build: ask me for a quote. The full page-by-page method is in my guide to riad website design (and in French).