The mid-season growth
spurt in business reservations came after the corporate channel leveled out at
prior year volumes at the end of the second quarter. Rates paid through the
global distribution systems (GDS) also pushed past second quarter levels that
had ebbed slightly in June. By month-end, average daily rates (ADR) for
corporate bookings surpassed prior year by +0.3%, setting a year-to-date growth
pace of +0.7% over 2012.
“The corporate channel has
the tendency to set the overall mood about how the hotel industry is
performing,” said David Millili, chief executive officer of Pegasus Solutions.
“This summer’s solid leisure travel season, which has been healthy, has now
been complemented by an unusual but welcome boost in corporate travel bookings.
Even better, the demand and rates are expected to continue through the end of
summer and into autumn, and length of stay may even grow by almost +2% this
month.”
Globally, the leisure
channel came shy of 2012 levels by -3.0%. However, last year’s levels were
+10.4% over 2011, which suggests July 2013 still enjoyed a strong and steady
holiday volume. ADR increased by +4.9% over prior year, exceeding the year-to-date
pace of +2.5%, and nearly repeating June’s record +5.1% growth. Ultimately, the
channel will conclude summer with consumers having driven more revenue to
hotels overall than last year. September will bring less reservation growth
before the channel rallies one more time in October to nearly +7% beyond last
year’s levels.
Data reported by Pegasus
Solutions comes from billions of transactions processed monthly for nearly
100,000 hotel clients, facilitating more than $16 billion a year. The Pegasus
View, produced quarterly, is the only industry report to reflect data drawn
from both GDS and ADS transactions, representing the business and leisure
markets respectively. Pegasus’ PegasusView Market Performance business
intelligence is a monthly reporting product augmenting the global data provided
quarterly in The Pegasus View.
