In its new White Paper “Hotel Distribution and the Pandemic: The Tourism Chessboard,” D-EDGE updates the latest data on hotel distribution and highlights radical changes in hotel distribution patterns.
In this latest study, D-EDGE has studied the evolution of hotels’ online distribution mix, the evolution of the average booking value, the length of stay and has also focused on the cancellation situation.
In a context where hotel bookings are still globally well below pre-COVID levels (see graph below), our analysts have detected that a real revolution is taking place in the distribution modes with a reshuffling of the cards between the different players and the different sales channels.
The main findings of the study are :
> The weight of direct distribution (i.e. room sold via the hotels’ branded website) reaches record levels. The Direct channel has even become the leading sales channel in Asia (41% of hotels’ online sales in Asia in 2021 are made via their websites)
> Amongst the OTAs, Booking now accounts for the larger part of the market. Some large players, such as Expedia or Agoda, have seen their share shrink significantly, while other players, such as AirBnB or local OTAs, have on the contrary seen their weight grow.
> Cancellations continue to represent a huge volume of transactions (on average, more than one reservation out of two is still cancelled) and underline the still very precarious nature of the recovery effects that can be observed.
All results are available online in 9 languages (English, Chinese, Czech, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, and Spanish)
Methodology: D-EDGE, a provider of Saas and digital marketing solutions for hoteliers, has been publishing regular indicators on the evolution of online hotel reservations since 2018. With a customer base of 12,000 hotels, its studies are based on a stable panel of 4,000 hotels that have used D-EDGE’s CRS over the entire period observed.
