IgnitionOne Q1 Hospitality Report Tracks 25% Increase in Revenue from Direct Bookings

IgnitionOne, a global marketing technology and data analytics provider with a focus on the travel and hospitality sector, announced the release of its Q1 2019 Hospitality Industry Report. The report establishes key industry benchmarks including average booking lifecycles, booking rates, lead time, and travel breakdown by business and leisure for all tiers: Luxury, Upscale, Midscale, Economy and Extended Stay.

The report analyzes data from 5.3M direct to website bookings in Q1, and the resulting $1.7B in total revenue, a 25% increase from Q4 2018. These numbers add up to an estimated $3B in total revenue over six months. Cart abandonment rates were static quarter over quarter, with the most significant change being an increase of 1.5% in abandonment rates among luxury hotels.

The report analyzes booking activity in major destination cities in the U.S. Holiday weekends, major events, and sports celebrations were likely responsible for increased bookings weeks in advance. For example, hotel properties in Las Vegas saw high booking activity in February ahead of March Madness and Spring Break. Similarly, Atlanta likely received an influx of sports fans in February due to the Super Bowl, with the highest booking volume over the last six months occurring in early to mid-January.

Over the last six months, IgnitionOne reported the most popular check-in day was the Friday of President’s Day weekend. The report also highlights a trend in check-in dates throughout Q1, where bookings for check-ins on Sunday through Wednesday are low, Thursday sees a bump, bookings peak on Friday and Saturday sees a similar volume of bookings as Thursday before the cycle resets.

Additional Highlights:

• Upscale and Luxury bookers spent around 15-25% more time in Q1 than in Q4 researching before completing a booking.
• Luxury and Upscale are more skewed toward longer lead times, with over 80% and 70% of bookings occurring more than a week in advance of the check-in date respectively.
• Economy has the highest proportion of bookings that occur the same day, occurring 3x more frequently than any other hotel tier.
• Midscale and Extended Stay trends are similar to each other in terms of when travelers book their trips, with the majority of bookings occurring less than a month in advance but not same-day.

For more information and to download the full report, visit here.

Methodology

The IgnitionOne Hospitality Industry Report is based on first-party data gathered from more than 18,000 hotel properties across more than 50 hotel brands. The report looks at global trends in site activity, lead time, length of stay, and booking values. The data is aggregated to show trends over time as well as by hotel tier.