Excerpt from Travel Market Report
The percentage of consumers who book direct through a hotel’s website dipped recently, approximately one year after the major chains engaged in a massive campaign to drive travelers to book away from intermediaries like travel agents.
According to MMGY Global’s 2018 Portrait of American Travelers (POAT) annual survey, 37 percent of consumers responding to their annual study said they booked through a computer, at a hotel’s website. That was down from 39 percent in 2017.
This might be good news for travel agents, who were feeling pressure on their lodging sales following major chains like Marriott International offering direct discounts and lowest rate guarantees.
Steve Cohen, senior vice president, insights and research, MMGY Global said the two-point drop from 2017 “is not significant,” but he did call this year’s results a sign of a “leveling off in bookings.” The percentage of travelers booking direct remains up from the 32 percent who reported doing so in the 2016 edition of MMGY’s study.
The portion of consumers using travel agents for lodging bookings has held steady at 4 percent the last two years, up two percentages points from the MMGY 2016 survey.
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