One thing I can tell you is that the “x guests booked” absolutely isn’t true, as it would frequently say so about my apartment when I hadn’t had a booking in months.
Maybe it’s true in some cases, but there’s definitely some fudging going on.
Did it specifically say "X guests booked at this specific apartment/hotel"?
Not explicitly specifying the place would seem like an easy way to have a technically correct statement, while being extremely misleading. E.g. maybe it just meant bookings in the same city, despite showing that text beside your apartment.
Boils down to risk mgmt vs revenue - and all but the most conservative businesses will choose revenue.
In my case, I absolutely starved booking in favour of Airbnb, as Airbnb was much faster out of the gate. So, I have platform risk, but revenue is good.
My point is that in this market it's really hard to attain channel balance.
It seems the OTAs alghoritms absolutely favour cannibalization.