Hotels in many markets around the globe saw growth in the share of bookings coming through their direct channels during 2020.
According to SiteMinder data based on gross revenue sources for all users of its platform across more than 20 of the world's top destinations, hotel websites maintained their top-five position in all destinations over the full year 2020.
Since April, as the overall number of bookings dropped due to COVID-19, hotel website share rose in more than a third of destinations analyzed, reaching number two in markets including Germany, France, New Zealand, Italy and the United Kingdom.
“Domestic leisure tourism took an upturn, and the direct channel has been attracting a lot of that particular type of business,” says James Bishop, SiteMinder’s senior director of global demand partnerships.
“That’s good for hotels because it’s seen as a very high value channel … and hopefully hotels can learn some lessons from that in terms of how they can continue to drive that share of direct reservations through this year and into future years.”
The data is detailed in a SiteMinder e-book publishing today.
New names
Along with growth for direct booking channels, the report details a shift away from consolidation, with 32 instances of distribution channels making their first appearances in the lists and 20 instances of distribution channels climbing at least two positions from the prior year.
Bishop says channels that specialize in domestic leisure bookings “didn’t suffer to as great an extent as others” in 2020.
One channel that gained prominence in the last year is Airbnb. According to SiteMinder, Airbnb debuted among the top 12 channels in nine destinations, rose in five destinations over the full year and increased its ranking in 10 destinations since April.
With international travel limited, local and regional distribution channels also moved up in the rankings in many markets, comprising about half of the top 12 in each destination for the full year. And some new names joined the lists just since April, including Kurzurlaub.de in Austria, VeryChic in France, feratel in Germany, MG bedbank in Indonesia, and Hotels.nl in the Netherlands.
As travel restrictions and consumer confidence in travel have ebbed and flowed, SiteMinder finds the increase in spontaneous travel has boosted sites such as Lastminute.com and HotelTonight, which together are in the top 12 for nine destinations.
Wholesalers also saw an uptick, with Hotelbeds among the top 12 in every destinations for both the full year and since April, and WebBeds among the top 12 in eight destinations since April.
Lessons learned
Bishop advises hotels to understand which channels can attract domestic travelers and other types of guests that are able to travel to their properties and to “remain agile with their distribution,” as COVID-19 data and restrictions may continue to change.
As the travel industry approaches the one-year anniversary of the initial lockdowns in many markets, Bishop says hoteliers should learn from their experiences over the past 12 months to understand where demand may exist as current restrictions are lifted.
“We know what we need to look for. We can see where those guests that did start to travel as soon as they could, what channels they were coming from, what types of guests they were,” he says.
“So we are in a stronger position with regards to information and data to make better decisions at this point and then just be optimistic towards later on in the year as the vaccine programs role out, and as we can see international acceleration.”
The report also includes advice from SiteMinder and several online booking channels, including Flight Centre Travel Group, Despegar, Airbnb, Expedia Group and Booking.com, on trends to expect over 2021 and how hoteliers can optimize their listings.
