AI Direct-Booking Engine
Sole architect and builder (built for a separate venture)
Stack
- Laravel
- Livewire
- Stripe
- Hostaway API
- Claude API
Numbers
- Channel mix flipped from ~33% direct / 66% OTA to ~66% direct / 33% OTA in year two
- Year-two revenue on pace to roughly double year one
- Gross revenue and net margin per booking up substantially
About this build
J.S. Hubbs Guest House is a short-term rental of three suites on Keuka Lake, in the Finger Lakes of New York. It is a separate company under its own LLC and is not part of Hubbs Enterprises — the build appears here because it is representative of the applied-AI systems Hubbs Enterprises founder Walter Carl builds.
Problem
Year one, the property earned roughly a third of its revenue from direct bookings and two-thirds through online travel agencies — paying meaningful commissions to platforms that own the guest relationship.
Approach
Built the direct-booking site end-to-end, including a custom booking engine: Hostaway channel-manager API integration for unified inventory and rate management, Stripe payments, an AI-assisted local guide, and a direct-booking flow that bypasses third-party commissions. The site competes on its own SEO and brand for direct traffic.
Outcome
Year-two channel mix flipped to roughly two-thirds direct, with year-two revenue on pace to roughly double year one and both gross revenue and net margin per booking up substantially.