Skift Take
With a growing share of hotel bookings made online, many hoteliers are reliant on third-party travel websites for booking volumes, and global visibility. Booking engines, website builders, and direct-booking tools can help these hotels find a better balance between first- and third-party bookings.
Over the past decades, the booking pendulum has swung back and forth between online travel agents’ (OTAs) growing booking share, and hotels clawing back some direct bookings. Hoteliers have been complaining about high commissions paid to third-party travel websites, and increasingly invest in driving more direct bookings. The evolving hotel tech stack has website builders, booking engines, and direct-booking tools offering to aid this cause.
Our new Skift Research Report: Booking Engines, Website Builders, and Direct Booking Tools provides an overview of these tech categories, their market size, and growth potential. 64% of hotels worldwide (76% of global room supply) use booking engines, and 45% of hotels (60% of global room supply) use website builders and direct booking tools.
A survey by Hotel Tech Report showed that direct booking drivers such as booking engines and direct booking tools were one of the top tech categories hoteliers intend to invest in.
These tech categories have exceptional potential to grow. Hoteliers must find the right balance between all tech offerings available, keeping a holistic approach towards booking volumes, marketing, and loyalty to be able to drive profitability.
What You’ll Learn
- Current and future growth potential of Booking Engines, Website Builders, and Direct Booking Tools
- Total market penetration
- Top Vendor market penetration
- Revenue distribution for vendors
- Total market penetration for vendors based on total number of hotels and rooms they service
This is the latest in a series of reports and data products that Skift Research puts out. The Hotel Tech Benchmark is a data product exclusively available to our Research subscribers, offering insights in market sizes, revenue streams, and vendor landscapes for the major hotel tech categories.
After you subscribe to Skift Research you will gain access to our entire vault of reports conducted on topics ranging from technology to marketing strategy to deep dives on key travel brands. You will also be able to access our proprietary Skift Travel Health Index and Skift Health Score data and reports.
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Tags: booking engines, direct booking, future of lodging, hotel tech benchmark, hotel technology, skift research, websites