One-Minute Insights: Everything's up...so why isn't everything up?

photo of the author Tom Foley

The Inntopia Commerce platform processed an average of 1,510 new bookings per day last week, a 7% year-over-year (YOY) increase from last year at this time, and just slightly below the 1,568 per day the prior week, a 5.6% YOY improvement. In fact, YOY bookings have been up in 22 of 27 weeks since the beginning of June, and revenue numbers are up in 16 of the last 27 weeks.

But the industry is still struggling badly with occupancy and revenue performance. So, what’s going on?

The Insight

The problem, of course, is that cancellations are also up, and a lot more than 5 or 7 percent. While bookings are going skyward, a significant percentage of those transactions aren’t followed through to arrival. In fact, while we were processing 1,510 new bookings per day last week, we were also cancelling 28% as many transactions, an average of 423 per day, or 106% more than at this time last year (see chart). And revenue cancellations last week were 111% higher YOY. The offset of the very high YOY cancellations is driving near-record booking volume into ‘net negative’ YOY territory, and it didn’t just start recently.

The Takeaway

Booking and cancellation volume is must-have information. They complement one another to arrive at net values, which tell the real story. And though weekly YOY performance variances might be relatively small, those declines are cumulative and result in the deep 35-45% declines in occupancy and revenue we now see across the industry.
But there’s good news, too. The extremely high booking volume confirms that pent-up demand has a place in our planning, and we can rest assured that consumers will return. But first we’ll need to see a subsidence in COVID0-19 caseloads and a return to confidence in health and safety. Until then, the industry should brace for occupancy and revenue holes to remain.

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