Thousands of homestays are identical: and the price to pay

Everything is white, with greenery.

Browsing any homestay search page in Da Lat, Hoi An, or Phu Quoc, you will encounter a familiar set of photos: white walls, wooden frames, small green decor corners, and natural morning light. Each place has a different name, but looking at the photos, you cannot tell them apart.

This is not an aesthetic error. This is a strategic error. When homestay owners look at busy competitors and copy their style, they inadvertently join a crowd where no one stands out. Guests do not remember names. Guests do not return for the brand; they return for a better price or a more convenient location. Neither of these is an asset that can be accumulated over time.

Byron Sharp in his book How Brands Grow refers to this as the "mental availability" problem (the ability to be remembered when needed). A brand without distinctive identity assets, regardless of service quality, will not be remembered by customers' brains as a preferred choice. They book based on what appears first, and what appears first is often the place that spends the most on advertising on OTAs.

OTA is not a distribution channel; it is an trap.

OTAs are not bad. Booking.com, Agoda, and Airbnb are effective distribution channels, especially in the early stages when a property lacks a loyal customer base. The problem is that many homestay owners allow OTAs to become the sole channel, thereby losing control.

When all bookings come from OTAs, customer data belongs to the platform, not to you. You do not know who your guests are, where they come from, or what they value about your place. You cannot follow up after their trip. You cannot build a loyalty program. You can only wait for the next booking and pay the commission.

More seriously: when OTAs adjust their algorithms or increase commission rates, you have no choice but to accept it, as all revenue depends on that. This is exactly the definition of an unbalanced business relationship.

Identity is not decoration.

Many property owners, when they hear "branding," often think of a new logo, a new photo set, or a new wall color. This is the most common and costly misunderstanding in this industry.

Marty Neumeier, author of The Brand Gap, defines a brand as "the gut feeling customers have about a product, service, or organization." That feeling does not come from the logo. It comes from the totality of what customers experience: from how staff greet them, to the scent in the room, to the story you tell on your website, to how you handle issues.

A truly distinctive accommodation is one that guests can describe to their friends in one sentence, and that sentence is not "it's cheap and okay." It is: "It's in the middle of a pine forest, the owner is a Co Ho person, and in the morning they teach you how to cook bamboo rice." Or: "It's a small homestay, but all the utensils are ceramics from Bau Truc village, which feels completely different." That description is the brand. And that brand cannot be replicated or contested by any OTA.

Brands with meaning and clear differentiation help customers be willing to pay above the market average.

Kantar BrandZ, 2020 (the "meaningful + different" brands: customers pay 38% more than for brands without differentiation)

Building direct channels: the first step to escape OTA.

Breaking free from OTA dependence does not mean deleting your Booking.com account tomorrow. It means building a strong direct channel alongside to gradually reduce the dependency rate.

The direct channel is not just a website. It is the entire system that helps guests remember you, find you, and book with you without intermediaries. To achieve this, the establishment needs at least three things: a clear positioning (who you cater to, what experience you provide), a story that can be told, and a reason for guests to share with others after they leave.

The local story is an advantage that large chains cannot compete with. An international resort may invest in a more beautiful infinity pool, but it cannot have local Grandma Nam picking vegetables from the garden every morning, nor can it have the story of the land where your establishment stands. Those details, if consistently integrated into positioning and communication, create a connection that money cannot buy.

Consistency from cover images to towels.

One of the reasons guests leave one-star reviews is not because the establishment is poor. It is because the establishment does not match what was promised. Photos on OTAs are taken from the best angles, with the best lighting, of the largest rooms. Guests arrive and find it slightly different. That feeling of being deceived, even if small, is enough to create a negative review.

This is a matter of brand consistency, not a photography issue. When positioning and actual experience align, guests are not just satisfied. They become storytellers on your behalf. Each time they share photos on social media, each time they recommend you to friends, is a time your brand spreads without advertising costs.

Consistency is not just about colors or logos. It is about how staff respond to messages, how rooms are arranged, how you handle complaints. Wally Olins, in his theory of corporate branding, identifies four key touchpoints: product, environment, communication, and behavior. In the hospitality industry, all four touchpoints must tell the same story.

The Vietnamese tourism market is growing. International visitors are coming in greater numbers, and the mid to high-end segment is growing faster than the budget segment. Opportunities are opening up. The question is: when guests seek a memorable experience, does your name come to their mind, or are you still one of the thousands of similar white and blue rooms on the results page?