Data released by Small Luxury Hotels of the World (SLH) on global browsing and booking trends through its website revealed the significant role mobile devices are playing in the luxury hotel industry.
In January 2013 SLH website hits in China were up by 406% year-on-year, Brazil 104%, Russia 22% and UK the UK 15%. US and Germany saw slight increases of 1% and 4% respectively, compared to the same month of the previous year.
Website visits by mobile devices in the developed economies saw the most significant growth. The iPad continues to be the most popular handset for searching hotels on SLH’s website, with the UK recording the largest share of total website visits at 22% in January 2013, up 108% year on year, followed by Canada (19%), France (17%) and Germany (16%).
Bookings via the iPhone were also marginally up year on year with the Canadian and Chinese markets both seeing the most significant jump, with 193% and 105% increase respectively.
Android visits were also up in most markets, although it still represents a very small proportion of the total volume of website visits.
The percentage of website visitors making bookings on SLH website across all mobile platforms remains fairly low worldwide, although the conversion rate is growing. Over 14% of all bookings in the last two quarters of 2012 were made by iPad, iPhone and Android, up from 7% across the same period in 2011.
China and Russia saw a large increase in year-on-year bookings by iPad, accounting for 24% (compared to 0% in 2012) and 15% (up 700%) of total bookings respectively. The steady rise of the iPad fan club in the UK continues with 18% of SLH hotel stays booked via iPad in January 2013, up from 7% in the same month a year back.
The UK is particularly a strong market for the hotel group with 30% of visits to the site made from a mobile device compared to 18% in 2012, a 50% increase year on year. SLH attributed this healthy increase to the high penetration of smartphones in the UK. As of December 2012, 58% of the population has a smartphone and almost a fifth (19%) owns a tablet. The iPhone is the most popular device capturing 29% of the UK smartphone market.
The hotel group said overall, the number of bookings made by iPhone and Android remains very small, with the exception of the world’s leader in technology, Japan, where 7% of all bookings via slh.com were made by iPhone.
