Duetto: Strong Indications Consumer Confidence Is Slowly Returning

INTERNATIONAL REPORT—Consumer confidence is slowly returning, with two main trends: short-term booking windows and long-term reservations toward the end of 2021, according to the latest Duetto Pulse Report, which tracked data from June 15-28 across three key hotel metrics: bookings, cancellations and web traffic.

In North America, new bookings for July, August and September saw double-digit growth when compared to data from the previous edition, which tracked data from June 1-14.

Overall, pickup for the North American market is still pacing 42% behind same time last year (STLY), although some markets are faring better than others. Nashville and Florida, for example, both saw positive growth in the second half of June, while Chicago, Los Angeles and New York stagnated or saw declines.

Looking at on-the-books business for further out, the latter half of 2021 is pacing well ahead of STLY, possibly due to pushback on group blocks, but still a positive sign that 2021 could prove a year of recovery, according to Duetto.

Latin America is reporting a different story, with declines in on-the-books business, as the region is hit by new coronavirus cases. Latin America’s pace is not only behind last year, but it is worse week-on-week. For example, looking at on-the-books for July, the progression over the past four weeks leaves on the books at 1% less for the week of June 22-28 than it was for the week of June 1-7. In other words, Latin America has less on the books for July now than four weeks ago, which suggests the region is losing more bookings than it is gaining. 

U.K. Hotels Reopen
Data for Europe, the Middle East and Asia (EMEA) was buoyed by the announcement that hotels in England could reopen on July 4 and in Scotland by mid-July.

New bookings in the U.K. saw strong acceleration, with July recording a 479% increase, August 280% and September 88%, compared to the last Pulse Report.

In comparison, the DACH (Germany, Austria and Switzerland) and Iberia regions showed figures plateauing with slight increases of 30% for August and September, compared to the last Pulse Report.

Similar trends were seen in web traffic for EMEA, the main driver being the U.K., which saw a 361% increase in traffic for July, 286% for August and 188% for September. Additionally, the U.K. is seeing percentage increases in the mid-100s through the end of the year.

Steady Growth for APAC
The latest edition of the Pulse Report showed a 95% increase for net pickup for stays in the month of July for hotels and resorts in Asia-Pacific.

Business in the region continues to be very short term, with 65% of the net pickup volume for the next 13 months converted for stay dates in July.

Short-term travel interest is again highlighted in web traffic data for APAC hotels, with a 110% increase in web traffic for stay dates in July since the last Pulse Report. There appears to be no major shift in consumer behavior for mid- to long-term travel dates.