The hotel industry could be losing up to $10 billion a year in abandoned online purchases, according to a report.
The study from marketing technology firm IgnitionOne reveals that hotels might have lost out on as much as $2.4 billion in lost online revenue in the fourth quarter of 2018.
IgnitionOne tracked 4.7 million hotel night bookings across 50 brands to arrive at the figure and estimates that could be as much as $10 billion for the year lost from cart abandonment.
Cart abandonment is tracked over the entire quarter so those consumers who put something in an online basket but come back later are not counted as "abandoners."
Further insights from the report reveal that booking rates for economy hotels are about 3% higher than the average booking rate while conversion rates for the luxury segment are the lowest.
In addition, economy and midscale hotels have seen the largest increase in cart abandonment with 12% more consumers failing to convert in December than for October and November.
In general the travel industry is not known for its high online conversion rates with many factors such as price, trust and poor user experience contributing to consumers abandonment a purchase.
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In its abandonment report for the third quarter of 2018, Salecycle says the travel industry saw the highest abandonment at 81.1%.
For the purpose of comparison, the fashion industry, which does better than other sector, had an abandonment rate for the quarter of 73.5%.
The company, which specializes in online conversion, tracked more than a billion abandonments across various sectors.
Salecycle, which has been tracking cart abandonment for a number of years, reveals that the travel industry was at its lowest in Q4 of 2015 at 84.4%.
* Get the full report here.