According to recent research, for the first time, customers in the United Kingdom are making more hotel reservations via mobile devices than via desktop computers.
The hotel technology experts discovered that mobile bookings have surpassed desktop bookings for staycations in the UK, with over half of all reservations (51.3%) completed on smartphones in the past year, marking a 6.1% increase compared to the previous year. This trend highlights the growing comfort among consumers in utilizing mobile devices for travel bookings, largely attributed to the wealth of information and the streamlined booking experience accessible across various platforms.
There has been a decline of 3.8% in desktop bookings, which now represent merely 46.5% of total reservations. In contrast, tablet bookings have experienced a significant drop of 33.4%, contributing only 2.2% to domestic hotel bookings in the UK.
In the previous year, the distribution of domestic hotel bookings between mobile and desktop was almost identical, with mobile accounting for 48.3% and desktop slightly leading at 48.4%.
The study indicates that mobile bookings remain less profitable for hoteliers compared to desktop bookings. An analysis of the revenue generated from hotel bookings via mobile, desktop, and tablet over the past year reveals that desktop bookings contributed 50.1% of the total revenue, whereas mobile bookings accounted for 47.3%. Tablet bookings represented the remaining 2.5% of the revenue.
This suggests that although UK travelers tend to spend more when booking accommodations through a desktop, this trend is evolving. Despite accounting for the majority of revenue in the past year, revenue from desktop bookings has declined by 3.6% compared to the previous year, while revenue from mobile bookings has increased by 6.6%. This indicates that travelers are now utilizing mobile devices for longer trips as well. Additionally, revenue from tablet bookings has seen a substantial decrease of 29.1%.
The statistics reveal that over fifty percent of staycation reservations in the UK are now conducted via smartphones, reflecting an increasing confidence and dependence on mobile devices for travel arrangements. This phenomenon can be linked to various factors. There is a transition towards a digitally-savvy generation that is not only comfortable but often prefers utilizing their mobile devices for bookings. Concurrently, online travel agencies have greatly enhanced the functionality and user-friendliness of their mobile platforms, facilitating a more straightforward booking process than ever before. As this trend progresses, it will be crucial for the hotel sector to refine their mobile platforms in order to effectively engage and capitalize on this expanding market.
In examining global trends, the study discovered that international tourists reserving accommodations in the UK predominantly favor desktop platforms. For instance, 80% of hotel bookings made by American travelers in the UK are conducted via desktop. Additionally, travelers from Australia, Canada, the United Arab Emirates, Germany, France, and Switzerland also exhibited a significant inclination towards using desktop devices for their hotel reservations in the UK.
