One of the most mature markets globally, Europe has three dominant OTA companies ruling the online market – these groups include Priceline, Expedia and HRS, who together own 90% of the online travel space in the region, with Booking.com, a Priceline subsidiary, leading with 60% individually. What’s more – one out of five hotel bookings come from Online Travel Agents.
The European hotel market has significant proportion of small and medium‐sized hotels. An important aspect of the study sheds light on the fact that 51% of hotels still manage channels manually where as 46% of hotels are unaware about metasearch integrations.
The infographic also highlights that younger travellers are typically more confident about using new technology compared to older travellers. Technologically skilled, 45% of European travellers use metasearch sites to compare rates and 43% read reviews before making a booking decision.