Aussies like to lay-by hotel stays

A family at their hotel, booked through Holiday Extras.
Credit: Professional Images

Visitors down under prefer to pay for hotel rooms now rather than later, according to stats from an Expedia data wrap up.

The Expedia group has revealed which nationalities prefer to pay now and which prefer to pay later for their hotel rooms. This follows the recent introduction of the Expedia Traveller Preference (ETP) program for hotel bookings.

ETP-enabled hotels give travellers a choice on whether they would like to pay for their reservation at the time of booking, or if they’d like to hold off until they actually front up at the check-in desk.

The data stacks up to show that almost 75% of tourists from Western Europe, the US and Asia prefer to pay for their hotel stay while they’re booking with Expedia.

Conversely, for explorers from down under, across the ditch in NZ, and China, the split was roughly 50/50 who preferred to pay at the time of booking or pay at check-in.

Expedia’s data also showed that hotels in Oz that enabled the ETP program experienced an extra boost in their standalone room-only bookings year on year, jumping an average of 10%, with more than 3900 hotels are currently ETP-enabled in Australia and New Zealand.

Senior director of market management for Australia and NZ David Hamblin said hotels down under are winning with this option for travellers.

“We’ve found that providing travellers with a choice of when to pay for their hotel room increases the bookings from Expedia sites, which is good news for our partners.”

“In addition to the benefits for hotel partners, ETP is also great for travellers who get to choose whether to pay for their hotel stay at the time they book, or at the time of their stay, and this functionality is now live on Wotif.com for participating hotels.”

Hotel Grand Chancellor’s group marketing manager Hazel Rigler agreed that the program is beneficial for hotel moneymaking.

“Since implementing ETP in Australia and New Zealand, we’ve experienced a positive impact on our business,” she said.

“Expedia Traveller Preference allows us to deliver better service by offering customers the choice of payment, helping attract more domestic and international visitors to stay in our hotels.”

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