Travel & Data Trends

It’s all Greek to me. The COVID-19 pandemic has so thoroughly dominated everyday life that we have all got an education in the Greek alphabet. From Alpha and Beta to Gamma and Delta, each new strain is a grim reminder of the coronavirus’ intractability.

What is the bedrock of great service? This is a question that any service provider should be well equipped to answer, but there is, perhaps, no industry more deeply rooted in the art of service than hospitality. Hotel and travel brands are, after all, in the business of experience; specifically, experience as a service, and today’s guest expects best-in-class service at every turn. So, let me ask you again, hoteliers: what is the bedrock of great guest service? The answer, if you ask me, is quite simple: technology.

With the surge in travel demand, the Indian hotel sector has been regaining ground faster than expected, with occupancy climbing significantly in recent months, strengthening the sector's hope for a stronger rebound. Domestic leisure travel growth, significant pent-up demand, and the resumption of business travel in the country are all contributing to the strong revival. Weddings and social events are also driving demand in certain markets.

Following on from our dive into the Q3 data for North America, Asia Pacific, and Latin America, we round out the series by looking at the EMEA region. What was the behavior of travelers in this varied and important market as it experienced its second summer of the pandemic? Here we examine five of the most noticeable trends found in our exclusive first-party data.

Perhaps you’ve heard about hotel benchmarking but are not quite sure where to start. How do you define a compset? What kind of metrics can you compare? How should you go about interpreting the results? We’re going to dig a little deeper into all of these points but first, let’s think about why benchmarking your hotel’s performance makes a lot of sense.

Travel is making a new direction in 2022 and it’s important for hoteliers to continue adapting to the consumer changes for these travel predictions.

We recently shared the key takeaways of Q3 traveler behavior in our latest Travel Recovery Trend Report, as well as the top trends for North American (NORAM) and Asia Pacific (APAC) travelers. Next, we’ll dig into the data for the Latin American (LATAM) market to try and understand how these trends compare to what’s happening at the global level and in other regions.

Rapid growth in Chinese outbound travel demand from 2003 onwards was a key driver for tourism and leisure hospitality in many parts of the world. Can this momentum be regained post-COVID to drive more hotel development?

Expedia Group Media Solutions recently published the Travel Recovery Trend Report for Q3, which details many of the latest insights on the industry’s continued rebound from the pandemic, as identified in Expedia Group’s exclusive first-party data. Here, Richard Kocher, who leads Media Solutions’s data insights and planning team, gives his expert take on these latest findings and looks ahead into Q4 and beyond.

Guest expectations have evolved in recent years especially during the pandemic. The right technology – specifically, a Central Data Management (CDM) system built around a centralized guest profile – can enable hotels to meet these.