The latest edition of the Pulse Report, which compares data from November 2021 with October 2021, shows continued recovery across the majority of regions, and despite increases in Omicron concerns leading to a rise in cancellations, web search activity shows that appetite to travel is still very much there.
North America
There was some real positivity for North America in terms of pick up for December but it does drop for Qs 2 and 3 of 2022.
On-the-books committed occupancy, transient reservations, and group blocks are still good and web traffic shows that interest in travel across the U.S. remains high with a 97% increase for most 2022 arrival dates.
The data shows that for web traffic, North American casino properties were at the top of the wish list, as well as extended stay properties, while outdoor recreation and ski asset classes have subsided a little.
In terms of cancellations, there’s an increase of 25% for December stay dates and 50% for January.
LATAM
It’s a tale of two halves for OTB committed occupancy in Latin America, as it’s trending higher in each of the next five months, but then falls from May onwards.
Web search activity remains positive for this region, with Brand.com searches across Latin America looking healthy in the short-term booking window, as well as the full year 2022. Deeper data analysis showed that resort properties attracted the most searches for 2022, followed closely by all-inclusive accommodation.
In terms of booking and canceling activity for LATAM, the data shows that cancellations were negligible for December stay dates, but they did increase for the first three months of 2022.
For booking pace, the region is up by 60%, leading all global markets for 2022.
EMEA
Pick up has been really positive in EMEA with the pace of new reservations for stay dates in December going off the charts in December and achieving a 56% increase in booking pace for arrivals throughout 2022.
However, this region also reported the highest cancellation rates of all global regions for stay dates in December, which remained high through April next year, as concerns surrounding the new COVID-19 variant increase and affect people’s travel plans.
Despite this, consumer search trends on brand.com suggest that those canceling reservations are still highly interested in traveling with a triple-digit surge reported for arrival dates in January and a 72% increase in web traffic for all of 2022. All-inclusive and resort properties lead in popularity while outdoor accommodation and short-term rentals lag.
APAC
In APAC, pick up continues to grow, but at a slower rate compared to the last Pulse Report, and is up by 36% overall for 2022. This growth was led by short-term rentals and extended stay properties.
For the short-term booking window, cancelation activity is lower in December but then jumps up to a triple-digit increase in January.
On-the-books (OTB) committed occupancy is slightly higher in December and February and very good for January, although OTB ADR is trending negatively for December and January.
It’s good to see that appetite for travel is still very much present as web shopping activity is again positive with consumer search activity remaining high through the first quarter of 2022.
In Conclusion
Lloyd Biddle, Director of Enterprise Solutions at Duetto, commented: “We aggregated user forecasts for hotels running on Duetto, to glean some insights for the balance of 2021 and we found that a period of stability, after a record summer travel period and before seasonal winter lows, concluded with an outstanding Thanksgiving holiday in the States. Likewise, performance across the EMEA hospitality sector continued to claw its way back. However, RevPAR whiplash remained the trend in APAC and that sudden deceleration or change in direction appears to be a common theme for the other global regions as 2021 comes to a close.
“As we all enthusiastically look forward to a promising New Year, what does the forward-looking data from Duetto tell us? Reservation cancellation activity, especially in APAC, has ratcheted up over recent weeks, which should not be a surprise considering the uncertainty around the two prevalent covid-19 variants. However, consumer interest in travel experiences is not waning as evidenced by high volumes of availability and price shopping on brand.com websites for stay dates throughout 2022.”
The Duetto Pulse Report is a quarterly report available for free to hoteliers from around the world. It tracks key metrics for North America, Latin America, EMEA, and APAC. Subscribe here.