September 2014

Study shows travel reviews have a significant impact on both conversion rates as well as pricing.

Source: www.trustyou.com

Travel reviews have a significant impact both on conversion rates as well as pricing. This is something that a revenue manager cannot ignore but the same goes for the ecommerce director as well as with the rest of the company.

Source: www.travelclick.com

Transient bookings are up 6.9 percent year-over-year and ADR for this segment is up 5.1 percent. When broken down further, the transient leisure (discount, qualified and wholesale) segment is showing occupancy gains of 6.6 percent and ADR gains of 5.3 percent. Transient business (negotiated and retail) segment occupancy is up 7.3 percent and ADR is up 5.0 percent. Group segment occupancy is ahead by 3.3 percent and ADR is up 1.8 percent, compared to the same time last year.

Source: www.slideshare.net

Key findings: 
– Booking.com have topped the multichannel overall league table with thehighest score in five out of six of the customer journey stages (First Impressions, Initial Research Search, Search Results, Booking Process, Design & usability)
– Hotels.com were a close second with an excellent App score. 
– The multichannel rankings were again dominated by the Hotel sector with Late Rooms completing the overall top three. 
– Best Western achieved a top score in the customer support category. 
– Booking.com topped the desktop rankings coming first in every stage of the customer journey. 
– Quality of search experience is improving with an increasing number of brands achieving ‘excellent’ ratings. 
– The experience on Apps and mobile sites continues to lag behind more established website scores as brands continue to get to grips with optimising the travel customer experience on mobile. 
– Delivering a quality initial research mobile that is on a par with desktop sites continues to be a the main challenge although brands such as Expedia, Hotels.com and Booking.com are beginning to buck the trend and score well in this area.