CEO and Project Manager
February 9, 2016
Millward Brown research has identified walk -ins as the dominant hotel booking channel in India. In fact, more than one in four hotel bookings across India are made this way. In an optimistic world, this means there is a huge shift from offline to online to be tapped by OTAs , hotels themselves and last-minute travel specialists.
But in a more pessimistic context, it could mean that the marketing and promotion departments of OTAs and the like are doing a terrible job if so many people are going directly to the hotel and booking at the reception.
Millward Brown consulted hoteliers greece email list rather than customers for the survey. It identified the top 20 Indian business and leisure destinations and conducted more than 1,500 interviews with hotel staff in charge of bookings.
The result is a comprehensive collapse of no less than 4.2 million nights booked in the July-September quarter. Walk-ins accounted for 28% of bookings, offline 31% and online 41%.
But the collapse goes further. Through offline channels (31% of the total), reservations made by people calling the reception directly represent 12%, reservations made by people calling their corporate travel agent ( TMC ) represent 11% and people booking through a conventional travel agency represent 7%. “Others” represent the remaining 1%.
For hotel bookings defined as online (41% of the total), Millward Brown breaks them down into B2C and B2B . In B2C , OTAs account for 18%; the hotel itself accounts for 7%. In B2B , corporate Web bookings account for 10% and GDSs the remaining 6%. So combining walk-ins and phone-ins , hotel receptionists could be overseeing 40% of the hotel's business.
