In collaboration with Market Sampler, we recently completed an analysis to gain deeper understanding of how people book hotels in 2022.

The 2,017 response survey was targeted to people in he United States between 18 and 65 years of age, who recently returned from a trip.

The research results can be viewed here:

https://datastudio.google.com/reporting/14760ebe-069b-42c0-b696-a65c32e9b643

What did this research cover?

The survey had two main focuses. First is to analyze what attributes and factors make people like and book a hotel. The second part of the research was about organizing data to understand preferred booking channels of people at different age and by travel frequency.

The survey asked the following questions from the respondents:

• What makes a good first impression in case of a hotel?
• What influences you most to consider booking a hotel?
• What influences you the most to decide booking a hotel?
• What factors are most common dealbreakers in case of a hotel?

Furthermore the survey also asked about their preferred booking method, frequency of travel.

Research results

We encourage you to see the results and make your own conclusions after going through the data in the interactive dashboard. The key findings of the research are below.

First impression and booking decision

The over 2,000 respondents made it clear that photos and videos are extremely important during the first impression and consideration stages. Interesting to note that with 23%, the hotel name plays a key factor in making a good first impression on potential guests.

During the consideration stage, videos, product presentations and photos, including food photos make are the most important, followed by the hotel’s ability to demonstrate the experience. Attributes like location, style and uniqueness are less important decision factors.

In the booking stage, pricing clarity, price value and discounting are the key factors that drive decisions.

Common dealbreakers that make travelers dislike a hotel are boring rooms, unappealing food photos, pretentiously content and boring product presentations.

Interesting that reviews did not show as a very important factor.

Preferred booking channels by age and travel frequency

Among the 2,017 respondents, 41% prefers OTAs, 29% books direct and another 29% likes to book trips with travel agents or tour operators. Let’s dive deeper in the data to understand who books how.

Nearly half of self-proclaimed regular travelers book on OTAs. This makes sense as OTAs offer a very easy way to book, and reward travelers with discounts and special deals. This is followed by direct, leaving roughly 20% for travel agents.

Nearly half of respondents who hardly ever travel use travel agents or tour operators. The rest is split between OTA (around 30%), and a slightly smaller segment of direct bookers.

Most frequent travelers book OTAs and direct, leaving once again around 21% for tour operators.

Observing the response data by age, it shows that people below 35 predominantly use OTAs as their preferred hotel booking tool.

People who prefer direct bookings are in their 30s and 40s, while most tour operator and travel agent customers are 45+.