HotelHub, a hotel technology solution provider for TMCs and their corporate customers, has revealed that recovery in the hotel sector is well underway and bookings via the platform are likely to reach pre-pandemic levels ahead of previous forecasts.
According to the latest HotelHub Index for Q1 2022, global hotel transactions dropped in January to 45% of volumes for the same month in 2019, due to uncertainty caused by the Omicron variant (after climbing to 61% at the end of the previous quarter). However, this figure leapt to 87% of 2019 volumes in March.
US hotel bookings via the HotelHub platform are particularly indicative of a full recovery as they reached 100% of pre-pandemic levels for the month of March, despite Omicron triggering a drop in January to 61% of month-on-month 2019 volumes (compared with 91% in December 2021). European hotel transactions have also risen significantly with volumes reaching 85% of pre-pandemic volumes for the same month in 2019 compared with only 53% of pre-pandemic bookings at the end of Q4 2021.
While the majority of all transactions globally continue to be domestic hotel bookings, HotelHub is seeing a gradual return to international travel. By the end of the most recent quarter, international bookings made up 25% of overall volumes, compared with 15% at the end of Q4 2021. However, this figure still has a way to go to reach pre-pandemic levels when international bookings amounted to 57% of all transactions in March 2019.
One reason for the slower return to international travel could be the impact of the war in Ukraine, especially travel from the US to Europe. The HotelHub Index shows that in the US, only 12% of bookings were for international travel in March 2022, compared with 30% in March 2019.
To learn more about HotelHub, click here.
MEET
