Which Part of Your Booking Path to Fix First: DBS Summit Runs November 17 to 19

Most managers already know direct bookings are worth having. The harder question is which part of your own booking path to fix first. The Direct Booking Success Summit, free online from November 17 to 19, is built around that question, with 24 sessions chosen to cover different ground. RSU by PriceLabs is an official Media Partner for the 2026 edition. Register free.

Twenty-Four Sessions, Each on a Different Part of the Problem

Jenn Boyles has run this summit since 2021 and selects the program herself. The point of the curation is coverage rather than volume: each session takes a different piece of a direct booking strategy, so three days of viewing gives you breadth instead of the same advice from several speakers. RSU’s write-up of the 2024 edition gives a sense of how the sessions are pitched.

RSU’s listing for the summit groups the program into five areas.

• Your website and booking path. How many of your visitors reach the booking step and how many leave before paying, which is your conversion rate. Page speed, how easy your booking engine is to get through, and the trust signals (reviews, clear cancellation terms, a visible phone number, a secure checkout) that persuade a stranger to enter card details on a site they have never used.

• Getting found. Search, content, social, and email, covering how guests discover a property that is not surfaced by a booking platform’s own ranking.

• Pricing your direct channel. What to charge on your own site compared with what the big platforms display, and how rate parity clauses (the contract terms that limit undercutting a platform’s displayed rate) shape what you can advertise.

• Guest communication and repeat stays. Pre-stay and post-stay messaging, reviews, and turning a first booking into a second one that comes to you directly. RSU’s direct bookings coverage tracks the same ground week to week.

• Brand and positioning. Photography, story, and what makes a guest choose a specific property over a comparable one at a lower nightly rate.

RSU Presents Two Sessions

Write Like a Journalist, Get Found by AI (Uvika Wahi, Editor, RSU). More guests now start trip planning in AI tools such as ChatGPT and Gemini, and independent properties can already appear in those answers alongside the big booking platforms without paying for placement. Uvika shows what those tools tend to cite, how to brief an AI writing assistant so your pages read that way, and one page to fix the week after. Attendees get a two-part AI-readiness checklist.

Direct vs OTA, Honestly (Thibault Masson, founder of Rental Scale-Up and Head of Product Marketing at PriceLabs). A direct booking is not simply the commission saved: there are site costs, tools, and hours spent on guest messages. Thibault shows how to turn your Airbnb and Booking.com exports and bank statements into a cost per booking for each channel, your own time included, and the volume at which direct pays. Attendees get a handout with the files to export and the prompt to run.

Uvika also joins a Live Studio panel on Wednesday, November 18, from 11:30am to 12:30pm Mountain Time. That is 1:30pm Eastern and 6:30pm in Lisbon now the clocks have gone back.

What Free Gets You, and What the Pass Adds

The free ticket covers the full program. Sessions are pre-recorded and each day’s set stays available for 24 hours, so the three days are watched day by day rather than banked for later. The live portions, including panels, run in the Live Studio at scheduled times.

The All-Access Pass is an optional paid upgrade that adds ongoing access to the recordings along with speaker and sponsor bonuses. It matters most if the schedule lands awkwardly in your time zone or you want to revisit a session after the summit closes. The price is shown at registration.

The pass this year includes 15% off PriceLabs Dynamic Pricing for three months, open to new PriceLabs users and valid until December 19. PriceLabs publishes Rental Scale-Up and sells dynamic pricing software for short-term rentals; the discount is part of RSU’s media partnership with the summit.

Who Runs the Summit

Jenn Boyles founded Direct Booking Success and launched the summit in 2021 to give hosts and managers free training on booking direct. She hosts the Direct Booking Success Podcast, built the marketing platform Book Direct Pro, and is a former Airbnb Superhost who ran her own direct booking businesses before moving into training. RSU has covered the event since 2023, including last year’s preview.

How to Register

Registration is open at the summit registration page. The summit runs November 17 to 19, 2026, entirely online, and watching costs nothing.

The weekly newsletter will carry session details as the dates approach.

Session pages are going up now, and each day’s sessions come down 24 hours after they go live.