Ever thought how this website that doesn’t own any hotel or even a house to rent out makes millions of dollars every month in revenue and now you are asking the same question that many others ask: how does hotels.com make money? Does it even make any profit?
And if it makes any profits, then can you do the same and create a website that makes money like Hotels.com makes it?
You are in the right place!
I will explain to you, in less than five minutes, how hotels.com works and makes its money online, and I will guide you on how and where you can go in order to start your own website that makes you money with the same model that hotels.com follows.
So, without further ado, let’s begin!
How Do Hotels.com Make Money?
Hotels.com makes money by connecting potential customers like travelers and tourists with hotels and rental property owners and flight companies in order to make a booking, in exchange for a commission that the Hotels.com website gets from these owners on each completed reservation.
And this method of making money online is called performance marketing, or affiliate marketing.
And this is how Airbnb makes money, and how Kayak.com makes money and profit.
And affiliate marketing is a legitimate way of making money online, and it is how I personally make money to supplement my income.
And here comes the next question:
Can You Make Money with The Hotels.com Model?
Sure!
Making money with the Hotels.com business model, affiliate marketing, is open for almost everyone to do it.
You don’t need to be an expert, have technical knowledge or invest lots of money in order to start a business that makes you money with the same business model that the hotels.com website follows.
Affiliate marketing businesses can be started at almost any scale.
And even better, you don’t need to be involved in the travel and tourism in order to make money like hotels.com. You can actually make money with the same business model in almost any market or industry like golf, boxing, meditation, cooking, dieting, painting, home improvement, …etc.
I personally make money with this model in different niches, including the dieting niche where I recommend a custom personalized diet in exchange of a commission for every customer I bring.
Can You Make Money with Hotels.com itself?
Sure!
You can make money with hotels.com with the same model that hotels.com follows to make money from hotel owners, which is by being an affiliate for hotels.com itself.
In short, how this works, is that you create a website where you place banner ads for Hotels.com, and when someone clicks on those ads and goes to hotels.com and makes a reservation at any hotel or property that is listed there, hotels.com will get a commission from that hotel or property owner, and they will give you part of that commission.
This means that you will be a sub-affiliate for the hotels under the main affiliate, the hotels.com website.
And if you are interested in making money with this model of hotels.com but you don’t know how to start, then the following section is for you.
Build Your “Mini-Hotels.com” Website in 3 Steps
1 – Decide on The Group of People You Want to Work with (Niche)
If you want to make money with affiliate marketing like hotels.com, then you need to pick a niche.
For example, if you want to make money from hotels and airlines, then you can create a website about traveling, retreats, trips, …etc.
Or you can create a website about a certain country or a city.
This is important in order to be able to connect with your audience and help them and make money in the process.
But as I mentioned earlier, you can make money with the same method like hotels.com in any niche by recommending relevant services and products, like recommending soccer shoes or soccer training courses if your niche is about soccer for example.
2 – Create a Simple Website Like Hotels.com
You need a place where you bring your audience and show them your promotions.
And for this, you can’t use a Facebook page or a thread on Reddit as these places don’t like placing affiliate promotions on them, and this is not an efficient way to do affiliate marketing.
While when you have a website that people in your niche visit in order to find what they are looking for, like it is when someone visits hotels.com looking for hotels in a certain place, then you can place relevant promotions to these people and you have the potential of making commissions if they buy the products and services you promote.
And for this, you don’t need to be a web designer or to know anything technical, and you don’t need a big budget to start as big as hotels.com.
You can create a website that you can monetize with the hotels.com business model without any prior experience or technical knowledge.
And if you don’t know where to start with this, then don’t worry, as in the next section I will tell you where I personally started from scratch.
3 – Add Helpful Content & Monetize it Like Hotels.com
After you have decided on your niche and you created your website, you need to add helpful content that gives people in your niche what they are looking for, and if they purchase what you recommend, you can then make money as hotels.com makes money from hotels.
For example, let’s say that your niche is yoga retreats, then you might write articles that answer what people ask on Google such as:
- The Best yoga retreats in Bali.
- Affordable yoga retreats.
- Yoga and surfing retreats.
And so on.
And in each article, you list the best services you found, and link out to them through a unique link (affiliate link) in order to track your website’s visitors if they go to see these services.
And if people book any of these services, you get a commission.
And if you want to make money with Hotels.com itself, they have made it easy for you, because you can join hotels.com affiliate program and get a code to place on your site, which then displays their own search box on your site for people to use it and look for hotels and stays and book them, and then hotels.com will give you a commission (4.8%) of the booking value. (For example, around $9.5 on a $200 booking).
And with these three simple steps, you can create a website that acts as a “mini-hotels.com” website and generates you income and profits like how hotels.com does to its owners.
And if you were interested in doing so, but you don’t know where to start, then the next section is for you:
Where I Started Making Money Like Hotels.com?
Because you are serious about making money online with the hotels.com business model, affiliate marketing, then I want to reveal to you where I personally went in order to start from scratch with this model, and the place where I found all the training, tools and support until I started making a full-time income through websites that work like hotels.com.
And this great place is a platform that is called Wealthy Affiliate.
This is absolutely the best place to go if you are serious about making money with affiliate marketing like I do, because they provide you with all of what you need such as:
- The step-by-step affiliate marketing training.
- The best web hosting that you need in order to never care about the technical stuff.
- The advanced tools that would help you find opportunities for making money like hotels.com.
- And most important, the amazing support of 2 million experts and online entrepreneurs that joined this platform in order to make money like hotels.com.
- And much more.
And the nice thing is that you can get all of this and start your hotels.com-like affiliate business at a very low cost. You don’t need to invest millions in dollars in order to make money with this method like hotels.com did.
Actually you don’t even need thousands of dollars. This platform provides you with all of what you need at an affordable monthly cost.
Even better, they offer you a starter plan that you can join for free to examine the training and tools and get to know the community before you pay anything for the premium membership plan, which is extremely affordable.
If you are interested in starting your own hotels.com business that makes you money, then check my full Wealthy Affiliate review in order to learn more about the platform and start with the free membership.
Conclusion
I hope that you found my article helpful and that you now understand very well how hotels.com makes money and how you personally can do the same at a very affordable investment and without prior experience.
If you have read this far, then I bet you are ambitious about making money online with the same model of hotels.com, and I encourage you to start a business with this model.
In this case, I recommend that you join the platform I recommended in the previous section in order to start building your business today.
And if you have any question about the hotels.com way of making money or you need any help in anything, please, let me know in the comments’ section below and I will be happy to help you out asap 🙂