Hotel Bookings Analysis: Uncovering Patterns and Opportunities
Hotel Bookings Analysis: Uncovering Patterns and Opportunities
A comprehensive analysis of 119,390 hotel bookings revealing key insights about customer behavior, pricing strategies, and operational patterns across different hotel types and market segments.
Introduction
This analysis explores booking patterns and customer behavior across two types of hotels - City Hotel and Resort Hotel - covering over 119,000 bookings from July 2015 to August 2017. The study reveals significant differences in booking patterns, pricing strategies, and customer preferences between hotel types and market segments.
Hotel Type Comparison
City Hotels and Resort Hotels show distinct operational patterns. City Hotels command higher rates (€105.30 vs €94.95) and have longer lead times (109.7 vs 92.7 days) but face higher cancellation rates (41.7% vs 27.8%). Resort Hotels attract more families (9.81% vs 6.81%) and longer stays (4.32 vs 2.98 nights).
The distinct patterns suggest a need for differentiated strategies in pricing, marketing, and operations between hotel types.
Market Segment Analysis
Online Travel Agencies dominate bookings but show varying profitability. Direct bookings have the lowest cancellation rates (15.3%), while group bookings show the highest (61.1%). Corporate bookings have the shortest lead times but consistent patterns.
Each market segment requires a tailored approach to maximize revenue and minimize cancellation risk.
Price Sensitivity and Customer Behavior
Four distinct price segments emerged: Budget, Mid-range, Luxury, and Premium. Higher price segments correlate with increased special requests (0.43 to 0.88) but show similar cancellation rates (~38%) except for the budget segment (23.2%).
Price sensitivity varies significantly across segments, suggesting opportunities for targeted pricing strategies.
Booking Patterns and Lead Times
Lead times vary significantly by market segment and hotel type. Group bookings show the longest lead times (187 days), while corporate bookings are shortest. Online bookings show consistent patterns across both hotel types.
Understanding lead time patterns can improve revenue management and resource allocation.
Cancellation Analysis
Overall cancellation rate is 37.04%, but varies significantly by segment and hotel type. Direct bookings show highest reliability, while group bookings present highest risk. Price segment surprisingly doesn't strongly influence cancellation behavior except in the budget segment.
Targeted strategies needed to manage cancellation risk across different segments.
Final Conclusions
The analysis reveals clear opportunities for optimizing operations and revenue through targeted strategies for different hotel types and market segments. Key areas for focus include:
1. Differentiated pricing strategies between City and Resort hotels
2. Targeted marketing to high-value segments
3. Improved cancellation management strategies
4. Optimized lead time management
5. Enhanced service delivery for premium segments
Success in the hotel industry requires understanding and acting on these distinct patterns in customer behavior and booking characteristics.
