Expedia Partner Services Group Releases NYC Market Data on 2011 Demand and Air Trends
Online Travel Leader Shared Insights for 2011 Planning at Hotel Revenue Management Summit
Data just released by Expedia, Inc., the world’s largest online travel company, provides a new forward look at 2011 demand trends to help New York hotels plan for next year. The New York market data, which is based on bookings and shopping data from the company’s more than 90 Expedia.com and Hotels.com sites in over 60 countries worldwide, was unveiled at a hotel revenue management summit on Wednesday.
More than 175 members of the New York hotel community gathered for the revenue management summit at the Roosevelt Hotel in Midtown Manhattan last Wednesday, where a number of Expedia executives presented on trends in air travel, ADR improvements and forward looking shopping data, such as:
- Expedia expects a 2% increase in international air capacity and a 3% increase in domestic capacity into the New York market in 2011. The largest international increases originate from the UK, Germany, France, Japan and Israel. So far this year, average airfares into New York have increased 12%, compared to 17% increase into San Francisco and 14% increase into Chicago.
- The fastest growing international source markets for New York City are Latin America, Asia Pacific, Eastern Europe, and Nordic countries. Expedia demand from these regions has more than doubled in 2010 from 2009 levels.
- Hotel occupancy in New York is expected to remain flat in 2011, primarily due to the continued increase in new hotel supply. Corporate rates in Manhattan are expected to grow by 2%, while ADR overall is expected to grow by 8%, driven by changes in market segmentation.
Nick Graham, Expedia Director of Market Management for Greater New York City, said the meeting was designed to provide practical, insightful information to help drive more customers to partner hotels. Graham delivered Expedia’s five recommendations for growing ADR. Expedia’s recommendations include tips on how hotels can use the company’s proprietary Inline Merchandising and Expedia Extras technologies to add value to their inventory without diluting rates. Expedia also recommends developing a room-type mix strategy to maximize overall rate by offering promotions on upgraded room categories.
“We’ve been able to make some meaningful adjustments to our distribution and marketing strategy based on the guidance provided by the team at Expedia,” said Ed Oliva, General Manager of the Salisbury Hotel in Manhattan. “This year, Expedia has helped us optimize our mix of lead-in and upgraded room types. This strategy alone contributed to a double digit increase in our ADR.”
Expedia also unveiled a new reporting tool for hotels that shows what dates travelers are searching for on Expedia and Hotels.com sites around the world, allowing hotels to better identify peaks and valleys in their demand curves and implement the according online yield strategies. For example, Expedia has identified October 26 and 27 and November 21 to 24 as being the highest demand dates from Asia Pacific in the next 3 months.
“Our size and scale allows us to look ahead and identify trends that can help our hotel partners to better market their hotels and more effectively manage rates and inventory,” said Graham. “New York is clearly in recovery mode, and we believe that this market data will allow our partners to develop more robust marketing programs.”
The data presented at the conference is proprietary and is part of an expanding program to give Expedia’s hotel partners a competitive advantage. Expedia has over 400 market managers based in local markets worldwide who act as consultants and whose primary role is to help hotels attract bookings.
About Expedia, Inc.
Expedia, Inc. is the largest online travel company in the world, with an extensive brand portfolio that includes more than 90 localized Expedia.com®- and Hotels.com®-branded sites; leading U.S. discount travel site Hotwire®; leading agency hotel company Venere.com™; Egencia®, the world's fifth largest corporate travel management company; the world's largest travel community TripAdvisor® Media Network; destination activities provider ExpediaLocalExpert®; luxury travel specialist Classic Vacations®; and China's second largest booking site eLong™. The company delivers consumers value in leisure and business travel, drives incremental demand and direct bookings to travel suppliers, and provides advertisers vast opportunity to reach the most valuable audience of in-market travel consumers anywhere through TripAdvisor Media Network and Expedia Media Solutions. Expedia also powers bookings for some of the world’s leading airlines and hotels, top consumer brands, high traffic websites, and thousands of active affiliates through Expedia® Affiliate Network. (NASDAQ: EXPE)
About Expedia Partner Services Group
Expedia Partner Services Group (PSG) is the central point of contact for travel suppliers to access the global Expedia marketplace of leading travel brands comprising more than 90 points of sale worldwide. With hundreds of employees in local markets throughout the world, Expedia® PSG makes it easy for suppliers to meet their global distribution objectives, and delivers a portfolio of innovative connectivity solutions, rate and inventory management tools, business intelligence reports, and online marketing expertise.
