Hotel Marketing Focuses Online

Hotel websites have become the centre of the industry’s marketing efforts, the latest electronic booking data shows.

TravelCLICK’s 2007 first quarter eTRACK results, which logs the booking patterns of 28 major hotel chains, shows continuing growth in online bookings.

According to the report Central Reservation Systems (CRS), internet reservations made up 41.2% of total bookings, up 21.9% on the same period last year.

eTRACK monitors bookings made on a hotel’s own website, retail websites operated by third parties, merchant websites, such as expedia, and opaque websites, where consumers book a hotel without knowing its identity.

Of the online bookings, 82.3% were made on a chain’s own site.

The report says electronic bookings are continuing to grow and should form a crucial part of any hotel’s marketing strategy.

“Hotel websites have become the centre of the industry’s sales and marketing efforts. As consumer choice continues to broaden, hotel companies are increasing their focus on web-direct bookings to ensue the consumer sees web-direct as a viable option,” the report says.

Reported by staff writer