Expedia Releases Market Data Showing Increase In International Consumer Demand For Travel Into San Francisco
Global online travel leader discusses market trends and industry outlook with Bay-Area hotel partners at revenue management summit
Expedia, Inc., the world’s largest online travel company, released data showing growing demand for international inbound travel into San Francisco, with a majority of international bookings coming from consumers in countries across the Asia-Pacific region and Canada. These findings, which are based on bookings and shopping data from the more than 90 Expedia® and Hotels.com® travel sites in over 60 countries worldwide, are just one of many insights Expedia shared during a revenue management summit on Thursday in San Francisco.
Expedia hosted more than 100 members of the Bay-area hotel community at the revenue management summit, which was held at San Francisco’s Palace Hotel. Kavita Patel, Expedia Senior Market Manager for San Francisco, said the summit was intended to provide relevant booking and travel trends information to assist local partners in capturing increased travel demand for their hotels. Expedia executives, including Patel, presented on local market trends, international consumer demand, and forward-looking booking data, such as:
- Inbound international travel demand for San Francisco is expected to increase in 2011. The fastest-growing international source markets for San Francisco are Asia-Pacific, Latin America and the Nordic countries. Expedia’s expansion efforts, coupled with merchandising campaigns targeting customers in those regions, are driving this demand.
- More than 50% of air tickets booked in to San Francisco are booked 0-13 days and 61+ days prior to travel when air ticket prices are at their highest. Therefore, San Francisco hotels looking to drive incremental revenue through longer length of stay packages would benefit from offering more aggressive package pricing for travelers with a less than two week or extended 60+ day booking window.
- Mobile bookings will continue to become more prevalent. Today mobile bookings make up a growing number of Expedia’s travel bookings in the U.S., with a majority of those bookings being made same-day. Expedia also recently launched an iPhone hotel booking application which the company expects will drive incremental last-minute demand in cities like San Francisco where last-minute bookings account for roughly 8% of the city’s room nights sold on Expedia sites
“Expedia’s global reach, coupled with its unmatched volume of monthly travel shoppers, brings an insightful perspective to our travel demand data that can’t be matched by other online travel companies. Sharing this information enables our partners to more effectively manage rate and inventory throughout all phases of the demand cycle, while also providing hotels with tangible tools and techniques to develop an optimal marketing and distribution strategy,” said Patel.
The data presented at the event 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)
Expedia is either a registered trademark or trademark of Expedia, Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries. Hotels.com is either a trademark or registered trademark of hotels.com, L.P. in the U.S. and/or other countries. Other logos or product and company names mentioned herein may be the property of their respective owners. © 2011 Expedia, Inc. All rights reserved. CST: 2029030-50
