Coveted direct bookings are ticking up compared to pre-pandemic numbers - but they’re not rising as quickly as predicted earlier this year - mobile is an increasingly important channel for bookings and artificial intelligence is an in-demand tool among hospitality providers.
These are just a few of the takeaways from H2c’s latest study “The Hotel Direct Booking Acceleration,” publishing October 30. The research offers insights on technology and strategy tied to the future of direct bookings.
“The findings from this study come at a pivotal time for the industry,” said Michaela Papenhoff, managing director of H2c. “As hotels seek to regain control of their booking channels post-pandemic, our research highlights the actionable strategies and technology investments that will help them stay competitive.”
The report included responses from 88 small, medium and large hotel chains representing 3,885 hotels and 578,653 rooms.
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In its study, H2c found that online direct sales are normalizing after a bump post-pandemic in 2022, with revenue growth beginning to mirror pre-COVID trends and now at a “sustainable trajectory.”
“After the surge in online direct hotel bookings in 2022, driven by the post-pandemic travel rebound, sales have now stabilized,” said H2c in its report. “IBE [internet booking engine] revenue growth has returned to its pre-COVID trajectory, reflecting a healthy and sustainable increase.”
H2c characterized online direct booking share at 29% as “exceptionally strong” in 2022 and now considers the year to be an outlier since travelers may have been going directly to hotel websites because they wanted to understand the property's COVID policies and procedures before making a booking.
In 2019, 19% of bookings were made direct online, whereas the number increased slightly to 21% by 2023. Data for 2020 and 2021 was not collected due to the pandemic.
Mobile growth is likely to continue growing - in fact, mobile bookings are quickly pushing past desktop sales. Five years ago, mobile traffic made up 36% of online direct revenue for participating hotels - last year, it jumped to 42% and H2c predicted that in just a few years, mobile could make up almost half of direct sales.
AI is also a critical issue for hotels in their direct booking strategy as they use the technology for personalization, chatbots and yield management. H2c found that about 50% of the hotel chains participating in the study said they have plans to introduce new AI features in the years ahead.study also touched on member rates and how they drive direct sales, IBE pain points, the rise in ancillary sales, AI-focused innovation, data cleansing and untapped opportunities in automation.