Crunching the data
While most other trends have been ‘normalizing’ to their pre-Covid levels, direct bookings have been quietly rising with a huge uptick since 2020. On Hostaway’s platform, the proportion of direct bookings against total bookings globally increased from an average of 7.8% in the last quarter of 2019, to 13.5% in 2020 and to 16.8% in 2022. The value of direct bookings, processed through the Hostaway platform, quadrupled between January and December 2021.
“In general, consumer behaviors take a long time to change, but our data is showing that this is not the case with direct bookings right now. Guests are booking directly with property managers and this trend is accelerating”; says Marcus Rader, CEO & Co-Founder of Hostaway. The proportion of these in the vacation rental industry had been gradually on the rise before Covid, but it’s since had fantastic upwards growth, despite the robust cancellation policies of big OTAs at a time when travel was very uncertain.
“We see this trend as coming from the property operators. They have become far savvier with their marketing strategies and software. This has in turn been attracting more value-driven and experience-driven guests who are happy to shop around for the best vacation rental. Once they’ve had a positive experience booking directly, they’ll continue to do so again. For this reason, we don’t expect direct bookings to drop below pre-pandemic levels.”
Hostaway’s new website builder
For property managers looking to tap into this trend, Hostaway announced a major upgrade to its website builder that can help them create promotions, reward repeat guests and attract more direct bookings. The new tool is available to customers free of charge through Hostaway’s Marketplace, the most comprehensive of its kind in the industry with over 110 different software solutions.
Tags: Hostaway
