On the other hand, hotel room nights booked electronically through the Global Distribution Systems (GDSs) and key Internet sites were stable (up 0.1 percent) versus the same period last year.
Even though room nights were up only slightly compared to last year for the second quarter, bookings were up 2.1% for both the GDS and Internet combined, fueled by a 39% increase in Internet bookings made through third party Web sites powered by either Pegasus or the GDS. 'Despite the increase in total bookings, room nights were flat because of a decline to 2.07 room nights per booking for this year’s second quarter versus 2.11 room nights per booking for the same period last year', said Bruce W. Mainzer, senior vice president of marketing for TravelCLICK.
Electronic room nights year-to-date through the second quarter have increased by 1.6% from the same time period last year, while revenue wasis up only 0.6% due to a 1.0% ADR decline. Average length of stay for the 20032 year-to-date period was 2.09 nights, down from last year's 2.12 nights.
eMonitor results are compiled from TravelCLICK's comprehensive database, which is the exclusive source of hotel industry electronic distribution data from the Amadeus, Galileo, Sabre, and Worldspan GDSs. TravelCLICK’s eMonitor also includes hotel bookings made through third- party travel Internet Web sites powered by Pegasus Solutions.
Travel agent bookings remained the dominant source of GDS and Pegasus hotel e-business, representing 77% of total room nights. The travel agent component of GDS bookings had a 0.4% increase in ADR versus the first quarter of 2002. Travel agents continued to be a key source of higher rate business for hotels. The average rate for room nights booked through travel agents wasis 49% higher than the average rate for room nights booked via the Internet. On a year-to-date basis, travel agent room nights were off 4.6% from 2002, whileand average rate increased 1.1%.
Internet (consumer online) room nights displayed growth of 35.3% above the secondfirst quarter of 2002. However, average rate was down for GDS and Pegasus- powered Internet bookings by 1.0% compared to the prior year.second quarter of last year.
Year to date, the Internet component displayed a 35.5% growth in room nights over the first six months of 2002. Average rate was only down only by 0.6%, which led to a 34.6% increase in revenue for 2003 year-to-date through the second quarter.
