The ‘Upside-Down’ Travellers Fulfilling European Hotel Demand

Authored by: Dean McCullagh (Partnerships and Contracting - Luxury Escapes)

It’s a tired comedy cliché that if you dig far enough, you’ll end up finding yourself ‘upside down’ in Australia. Europe, although now reachable on a direct route, courtesy of Qantas’ new Perth-London route, is still not only a long journey, but one done, more often than not, by ex-pats visiting friends or relatives, or for a once-in-a-lifetime trip to tick off the bucket list.

Last year 1.6 million Australians travelled to Europe and this number is expected to rise by 6% per annum over the next decade. It’s no secret that Australians travel en-masse into Europe, but in the hotel landscape its often seen as guest they desire, rather than a guest that stays or indeed is reachable to sell their rooms to.

For hotels in Europe, particularly city properties, Australians are guests they want, but never quite know how to reach. European hotels want Australian and Asia/Pacific guests because they are the complete opposite of the bread-and-butter European business they have. European business to hotels is demand they can easily fill directly via their own online channels, without having to compete with the OTA landscape.

When it comes to new markets, the majority of European hotels are looking to tap into the US and Asia Pacific business as this combines multiple pros: longer stay business, high-spend on in-house outlets, travel on shoulder dates/need periods and guests who book further in advance.

The average lead time for a European customer booking a hotel is only 14 nights prior to arrival. For any hotel, forecasting around this business can be difficult and therefore there’s a great need to bring in business well in advance.

Luxury Escapes drives the exact business a European hotel is looking for. In a recent campaign at a five-star hotel in London, Luxury Escapes sent 87% of its members to the hotel more than 14 days in advance, with 17% of that business being booked nine months in advance, coupled with an average length of stay of 4.8 nights, which proves that Luxury Escapes provides hotels with ample guests to keep in-house and upsell their outlets to.

The subsequent (and business critical) benefit is that they now have a strong business base across the full calendar year, giving them the opportunity to yield rate in the ‘late period’ or ‘closer to departure’ markets, which gives them a higher average rate and face value to the higher percentage of bookers coming from Europe.

Luxury Escapes, not only drives the right kind of business to a hotel, it showcases their property to a completely new demographic of customer. Working with Luxury Escapes promotes properties via multiple on and offline marketing channels, at no cost to the hotels, a feat which, if a hotel tried to replicate themselves, would cost them thousands in revenue and return little for their time and monetary investment.

Luxury Escapes is revolutionizing the European hotel and online travel landscape, offering a new approach to a tried and tested market, helping to bring those people from ‘upside-down land’ just that little bit closer…