TravelCLICK has released quarterly eMonitor results showing that worldwide hotel room nights and revenue, booked electronically through the GDS’ during the third quarter of 2001 decreased versus the same period last year.

Room nights were down 7% over the third quarter of 2000 while revenue was off 12%, as average rate declined by 5%. The entire room night decrease was due to September`s impact, as July and August both displayed year-over-year gains. Despite the third quarter results, GDS room nights for the first nine months of 2001 remained ahead of last year by 0.5%. This slight growth in GDS e-commerce contrasts with year-to-date declines in total hospitality industry room nights of 2.5% and more reported for the U.S. and many other markets. On a year-to-date basis, GDS e-commerce revenue declined 0.2%, as ADR fell 0.7%. Length of stay has been stable at 2.14 nights both in 2001 and 2000 year-to-date.

The eMonitor results were compiled from TravelCLICK`s comprehensive database, which is the exclusive source of hotel industry electronic distribution data from the Amadeus, Galileo, Sabre, and Worldspan GDSs. TravelCLICK`s data also includes consumer online GDS hotel bookings made through many of the major Internet travel sites, such as Travelocity and Expedia.

Travel agent bookings still remain the dominant source of hotel e-business, representing over 95% of total GDS room nights. The travel agent component of GDS declined 8.4% in room nights and 12.8% in revenue compared to the third quarter of 2000.

Despite the impact of September 11 and the soft third quarter in general, the Internet (consumer online) component of the GDS continued to display growth. Internet room nights, excluding bookings from auction sites, grew 36.1% in the third quarter of 2001. Average rate was down for GDS Internet related bookings by 5.7% from the third quarter of 2000.

According to Bruce W. Mainzer, senior vice president of marketing for TravelCLICK “Consumer online bookings made through GDS powered web sites like Travelocity and Expedia represent approximately 15% of all hotel bookings made over the Internet. Assuming the same healthy growth rates that we are seeing on the GDS, year-to-date consumer online hotel revenues on the entire Internet have grown by over $700 million.”

www.travelclick.net

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