Cities spotlight

If it feels a bit like déjà vu, you wouldn’t be too far wrong as here we are again contending with a new variant wondering if the hotel industry could be thrown another curve ball.

As one of the worst-affected sectors during the first and second waves of Covid-19, the hotel and travel industry were witnessing the green shoots of recovery in 2021. But with each new strain uncovered we are reminded of the stubbornness of Coronavirus and its’ ability to dominate our lives and interrupt our travel plans. Performance data from our community of Hotel Benchmark users across the globe gives us a peek into how markets have been recovering.

While global hotel performance has a way to go before it’s back to pre-pandemic levels, October was characterised by improved sessions, revenue, transactions and increased ad spend on-line. We take a look at performance between July and November in a handful of cities.

DUBAI

Entering its traditional high season, when Europeans flock to the Emirates to enjoy guaranteed winter sunshine and shored up by Expo 2020 which kicked off at the beginning of October, website revenues have hit 2021 highs. Between September and October, average website revenue for Dubai hotels virtually doubled, with November showing no signs of slowing down, up 11% on the previous month.

Average hotel website sessions were also up 63% between September and October, although slightly down in November to just under 7,000 sessions.

PARIS

Compared with other markets, gateway cities in Europe like Paris, Berlin and Rome all struggled in early 2021 with lockdown restrictions and loss of international travel massively impacting their performances.

Paris has been steadily recovering with website sessions tracking upwards since July.

Website revenue for Paris hotels has followed a very similar pattern just tailing off in November. In October revenue booked directly was at a 2021 high up 145% from July at Euros 139,000. 

Conversion rates were also at a 2021 high of 0.63%. Want to compare your conversion rate? Use our handy CR calculator here.

LONDON

As summer ended and London transitioned into Autumn with increased confidence in city breaks and the lead up to Christmas,  London’s hotels enjoyed their highest website performance levels of the pandemic era. Average website sessions peaked at 26,529 compared with 23,199 in January 2020 and just 3282 in January 2021.

Average number of bookings/transactions reached 158, just one short of January 2020’s average of 159. It has been a steady recovery from the start of January 2021 and improved performances during the summer months.

As hotels across the globe continue to  navigate their way back to recovery, consulting monthly data to understand how your hotel is performing on-line is essential. Sign up for your free Hotel Benchmark reports to understand how your hotel stacks up against the industry average or competitor set or find out how your hotel website sessions compared against our hotels in London, Paris or Dubai in November using our snapshot tool below.