TravelCLICK
has released results from the
company’s 2003 eTRAK report demonstrating that major hotel chains continue
to receive the majority of their Internet reservations through their own
brand sites.  eTRAK analyzes 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 CROs.  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.

“Compared to last year, for the first six months of 2003 there has been a
drop of 11.2% in phone calls to CROs.  Because such a large segment of the
population checks the Internet before making a phone reservation, more of
these calls are booking calls.  That is why actual phone reservations only
declined 4.6%,” said Bruce W. Mainzer
, senior vice president of marketing
for TravelCLICK.  “The entire Internet channel contribution is showing
healthy growth, but the GDS still remains the dominant source of electronic
reservations for the major chains.”

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