Hotelbeds attracts high-margin, non-domestic guests

Hotelbeds, the world´s leading bedbank, has today provided an update, ahead of its Market Hub Asia event, on the non-domestic bookings that its B2B sales channels provide to APAC hotel partners.

Hotelbeds confirms that 86% of its hotel bookings for Asia-Pacific destinations are generated from non-domestic source markets, with 44% of that coming from long-haul source markets outside of APAC.

Non-domestic bookings – and in particular long-haul bookings – typically offer hoteliers incremental bookings that are harder to attract through the hotel’s own direct marketing channel.

Additionally, non-domestic guests on average stay for longer, reserve further in advance, cancel less, and spend more in destination – thus helping hoteliers increase profitability.

Based on Hotelbeds’ booking data, the US, the UK, Australia, Spain, and Germany are among the top 10 source markets traveling to destinations in APAC.

The US is now the biggest inbound source market into APAC for Hotelbeds, up from 3rd place last fiscal year with 28% year-on-year growth in room nights.

Very importantly for the hotel, 45% of the United States travelers book APAC accommodations at least one month in advance.

Miguel Anaya, APAC Regional Director for Sourcing at Hotelbeds, said, “For a long time we have been able to offer our Asia-Pacific hotel partners a very high and steady proportion of non-domestic bookings. Within that a significant part has always been from long-haul, non-Asia-Pacific source markets, such as the United States and the United Kingdom – but the growth recently in United States bookings has been very strong, now taking the top spot for the region as the biggest inbound source market.

“Incremental bookings complement a hotel’s distribution mix but importantly they also provide hotels with high-value reservations. Such guests typically cancel less, stay for longer, spend more at the hotel and even come back more often – coming from B2B buyers such as tour operators, retail travel agents, airline websites, and loyalty and reward points schemes. This is even more so the case with long-haul bookings as they typically stay much longer and spend more.

“We’ve been working hand-in-hand with our APAC hotelier partners to raise awareness on how to diversify distribution channels and best attract international travellers to their hotel. We build strong partnerships with hotels not only by distributing hotel rooms, but by advising them on points such as language, marketing strategies and even western travellers’ tastes.”

Currently a total of 180,000 unique hotel properties globally form part of Hotelbeds’ portfolio, with the majority directly contracted under exclusive terms and conditions.

This growth has been driven by the renewed focus of Hotelbeds in providing its hotel partners with incremental bookings via its network of 60,000 travel buyers from both non-domestic source markets and B2B buyers – including tour operators, retail travel agents, airline websites and loyalty and reward points schemes.