The number of hotel bookings on mobile has outdone the desktop bookings, claims the travel portal MakeMyTrip. As of now, the mobile bookings contribute to 53 percent of the total domestic hotel bookings for MakeMyTrip. Back in 2014, the hotel bookings that took place on mobile contributed to only 29 percent of the total bookings.
As per the travel portal, the growth in the hotel bookings on mobile was greatly driven by the last minute transactions as almost 80 percent of the bookings were made a week before the travel. This trend of last minute check-in nearly doubles up during the long weekends. Particularly, this happens for the nearby and drivable holiday destinations.
Regarding the same, Rajesh Magow, the Co-Founder and CEO India of MakeMyTrip stated in a press release that the mobile has clearly hit an inflection point by outshining the desktop hotel bookings in the month of June. The advance purchase (AP) trends on desktop bookings and these have not changed in comparison to the last year. On the other hand, a majority of the hotel bookings that are done on mobile continue to be for the shorter AP. He further claimed that there is a slow, but a constant shift in the consumer habit of booking on the mobiles.
To be more specific, around 80 percent of the hotel bookings on mobile are for the check-ins up to a week’s time in advance and around 61 percent of the last minute bookings are made up to two days in advance to the trip. Notably, 32 percent of the mobile hotel bookings are made on the same day of the trip.
Customers seem to prefer the bookings via mobile phones for the small and budge properties. The small and budget property owners in the tier III towns have come up with the highest bookings via mobile devices increasing the year-on-year growth considerably. Some of the cities include Lansdowne in Uttarakhand, Yelagiri in Tamil Nadu, Khajjiar in Himachal Pradesh and Alibaug in Maharashatra.
