Browsing
Average monthly website sessions have remained pretty consistent between March 2022 and March 2023 with our data showing largely no change year on year. We expect to see sessions increase during April as consumers look for last-minute getaways over the Easter school holidays.
When comparing consumer browsing patterns between urban and rural hotels, again average website sessions have remained consistent between 2022 and 2023. Overall, rural hotels enjoy slightly better search volumes, 10% higher in 2022 and during Q1 2023, rural hotels enjoyed on average 18% more search volumes than their city counterparts.
Transactions
Overall, during Q1, 2023 hotel bookings made on-line have stayed on pace with 2022. The spike in January bookings can be viewed in the chart below.
Hotels extending January sale offers were able to capitalise on customers shaking off winter blues by planning Spring and Summer breaks early. For UK hotels the average number of website bookings was 185 in January compared to 147 in March.
When comparing categories of hotels and transaction levels, since Q1 2022, 5-star hotels have outpaced 4-star hotels. Particularly noticeable for the last quarter with 15% higher booking levels.
While bookings for 5-star hotels have kept pace with Q1 2022, 4-star hotel booking levels are a little behind, but an expected return to normality given that last year’s leisure travel was particularly robust, post-Omicron period, especially within the first quarter of 2022.
On-line revenue
So far this quarter, strong average order values along with healthy transaction levels are driving UK hotel performance with website revenues well above the end of 2022 (Q4). Q1 2023, on-line revenues were £243,899 compared with £175,270 for Q4, 2022. When comparing Q1 2023 against the same quarter in 2022, the average on-line revenue earned by UK hotels was also better, with 2023 up 5% on 2022.
In spite of the challenging economic climate, city hotel operators have enjoyed a 14% increase in on-line revenues when comparing Q1 2023 with Q1 2022 and between the end of last year and the beginning of this year revenues are up around £46,000.
When comparing urban and rural hotel revenues in the UK, city hotels have consistently between 30% and 50% higher average on-line revenues between Q1 2022 and Q1 2023.
If you would like to begin comparing your on-line performance with other hotels in your location, sign up for our free monthly benchmarking reports at www.hotelbenchmarking.com
