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Ireland: Hotel technology provider and booking specialist, Net Affinity, has launched a hotel mobile barometer to help hotels track their mobile booking performance against a national average.
Forecasts from Statista state that by 2025, retail sales from m-commerce in the UK will surpass £100 billion, which coincides with growth in the number of mobile users – anticipated to be nearly 100 per cent of those aged 16-54 as of 2023.
And in Ireland, according to Data Portal, more than 5.3 million mobile connections were active in the country in 2023, which exceeds 100 per cent of the population.
William Cotter, founder and managing director at Net Affinity, said: “This barometer looks at the data of our UK and Ireland based customers for 2024 so far, and in turn allows us to provide hoteliers with benchmark statistics on mobile performance.
“Although examining averages across datasets can provide context, hoteliers should be aware of how their hotel stacks up against competitors in the market. Because of this, it’s essential to dig deeper into the data and examine more specific information,” he added.
Data collated since Net Affinity launched in 2014 shows a steep growth for mobile usage to 2019, when it became the dominant device for the target audience. It has remained the dominant device, but growth has slowed from 2020, with slight fluctuations since, depending on seasonality, economic trends and the pandemic.
Data from January to June 2024 highlights that mobile remains dominant in the UK and Ireland, with 65 per cent of UK bookings on mobile and 59 per cent in Ireland. However, average booking value is 13 per cent and 17.5 per cent higher respectively on desktop, mostly driven by longer length bookings from overseas markets.
This is changing though, with the path to purchase and quality of user experience now dictating the success of high value bookings on mobile devices.
Net Affinity noted other significant factors impacting the success of a hotel via mobile, including star rating, property type and persona, and marketing activity.
The data review also demonstrated the importance of the path to purchase on mobile, and the need for hotels to have the technology in place to allow customers to return after researching to complete their booking via mobile.
