Global hotel occupancy in July and August 2022 hit 67 percent—which is an increase of 3 percent over the same period 2019, according to the latest data by travel technology company Amadeus. What’s more: The strong recovery indicators for travel in the remainder of 2022 and evidence of growing traveler confidence looking towards 2023 lay a strong foundation ahead of Q4 (and beyond), where on-the-books data is already outpacing 2019 bookings.
Amadeus’ Agency360 and Demand360 business intelligence data, which offers both retrospective and forward-looking insights, reveals that global hotel occupancy exceeded pre-pandemic levels consistently throughout the summer. These data sources are also showing strong recovery indicators for the remainder of 2022 and evidence of growing traveler confidence as the sector looks towards 2023. In fact, group and business travel segments are showing steady recovery in Q4, with 4.3 million group room nights already booked for H1 2023.
Mirroring the recovery of occupancy rates is the stabilization of booking lead times. 2022 now virtually matches the booking behaviors seen in 2019 with 53 percent of bookings made in the zero-to-seven-day window versus 50 percent of bookings made in this timeframe in 2019. As the booking lead time improves, this implies increasing traveler confidence as people make longer term commitments. Average daily rates (ADR) also continue to trend positively for the fall season, exceeding 2019 for the remainder of 2022 and, as usual, peaking around the Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday season.
Group travel is set for a strong conference season in Q4. Global group occupancy is consistently between 1 and 2 percent of pre-pandemic levels for the remainder of 2022 as the conference sector starts to rebound. With group travel set for strong recovery into Q4 and beyond, Amadeus says hoteliers can confidently plan in advance for larger groups, mitigate the potential impact of staff shortages, and begin to think about what new and exciting event technology to implement to support planners’ demands.
Business travel is also seeing a steady recovery as the year continues. 2022 is closing the gap to 2019 levels according to Amadeus’ Agency360 data, which reveals that hotel bookings across all major global distribution systems (GDS) have increased 98 percent in August 2022 compared to January 2022. At the start of this year, hotel booking volumes fell behind 2019 performance by 62 percent, but this gap has progressively closed over 2022, with global hotel booking volumes in August finishing 23 percent behind 2019 levels.
A new Amadeus survey of travel advisors supports this, as 60 percent of respondents said they are now logging into the GDS more than four times a day as business travel resumes. Seven in 10 advisors agree that COVID-19 has heightened their roles as price, health and safety remain the most important factors for travelers globally.
Source: Amadeus
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