top ten third-party Web sites for hotel bookings

TravelCLICK has released results from their 2003 eTRAK report, demonstrating that major hotel chains continue to receive the majority of their Internet reservations through their own brand sites. (10/10/2003)


eTRAK analyses the booking production of central reservation offices (CRO) for 28 major hotel chains. For the first six months of 2003, total Internet reservations showed a growth of 36 percent compared to the same period in 2002.

eTRAK statistics indicate that voice bookings received at reservation offices continue to decline, now representing less than 39% of total reservations processed by CRO’s. GDS distribution continues to dominate Internet third party distribution totals. GDS reservations represent 35.6% of all CRO reservations, compared to the 8.5% of CRO reservations produced by third party Internet sites.

Results from this study can differ with overall hospitality industry performance on the Internet and GDS because eTRAK reflects only the performance of these 28 brands, and only reflect reservations received through a CRO.

For the first six months of 2003, the top ten third-party Web sites for hotel bookings to brand CRO’s were, in order: Priceline, Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz, Hotwire, TravelNow, USA Hotelguide, Lodging.com, WorldRes, and Southwest. Some well- known third party Web distributors, such as Hotels.com, did not place in the top ten on this list because these sites usually obtain rates and inventory directly from individual properties rather than a brand or chain CRO.