The last-minute hotel booking market in India seems to be gaining momentum - with almost a fifth of bookings in the country now for the same day.
A study from hotel technology solution provider RezNext a studied over 3,000 hotel bookings it had processed over the the last quarter to analyse patterns such as guest booking flow and cancellations.
The release follows the recent launch of SavvyMob into the same-day mobile booking space alongside existing OTAs such as MakeMyTrip and startups like HotelQuickly and HotHotels.
Booking window
When it comes to booking window, hotel bookings made two to six days prior to the arrival date are the highest, at about 26%. The study recommends that hoteliers can leverage this trend and launch more opaque deals and deals of the week to accelerates bookings.
The second highest category of bookings (18%) are made on the same day as arrival, with 16% made a day before the check-in date.
Only 3.5% of bookings were made a month in advance.
Interestingly, a significant number (72%) of bookings were cancelled on the same day of booking and 21% of bookings were cancelled two to six days before check-in date.
The study also says that more men than women are booking in advance by a month.
Best day of week
While hotels usually have separate rates for weekdays and weekends, the study suggests says that Thursdays attract the most bookings.
The next most popular day in terms of number of bookings is Monday.
Weekdays received more bookings than weekends, and business hotels performed better than leisure hotels during the period of this study.
NB:Indian businessman image via Shutterstock.