SiteMinder’s annual Hotel Booking Trends report is the authority on hotel bookings across 20 top destinations, based on 125M+ bookings from the 44,500+ hotels using SiteMinder’s platform.
James Bishop, VP of ecosystem and strategic partnerships at SiteMinder, highlights the report’s key learnings for UK properties going into 2025.
Coverage of SiteMinder’s Hotel Booking Trends, including in Hotel Owner, has highlighted various key findings. These include the strong revenue-per-booking generated by hotel websites, growing international bookings fuelled by Asian source markets, and improved guest confidence, with longer booking lead times and lower cancellation rates.
With travel booming globally and guests willing to spend on what matters to them, it’s time for UK hotels to leverage the tools available for more effective pricing, inventory and distribution strategies, smarter forecasting, and greater personalisation. This way, hotels can optimise the balance between occupancy and revenue, to ensure success in 2025.
Direct bookings drive higher revenue
Direct bookings globally yielded more than 60% more revenue per booking than OTAs in 2024, though OTAs remained the leading generator of revenue overall for hoteliers.
Our data suggests hoteliers are adapting to evolved traveller behaviour, by using third-party channels to boost occupancy and visibility, while seeking to drive would-be customers to their websites where they can drive higher value reservations by upselling room type or adding additional services. This aligns with the findings of SiteMinder’s Changing Traveller Report 2025, which showed that while rising accommodation costs are a concern, travellers are willing to pay more for extras and personalised experiences.
Increased international bookings helped hotels hit new heights, driven by Asian travellers
The data from SiteMinder’s platform shows 2024 was a record-breaking year for hotels globally, with domestic bookings remaining strong while international arrivals increased. This was fuelled, in part, by the growth of Asian source markets.
This global trend was mirrored in the UK, where Asia Pacific’s Agoda reached a company-high fourth place among the country’s Top 12 revenue-generating channels. Trip.com also continued to perform strongly, while TBOHolidays, a B2B platform with an expanding international network of travel agents—including in Asia—emerged as a top channel for UK hotels for the first time.
Hoteliers must ensure they are prepared for the industry-shaping impact of this high-growth region, characterised by its expanding middle class and preference for digitisation.
Longer booking lead times and fewer cancellations
Continuing the trend we saw in 2023, travellers in 2024 continued to book their accommodation further in advance and cancel their bookings less often, with the global average booking window extending slightly to 32 days, and cancellations again less than 20%. For UK hotels, booking windows extended for the fourth consecutive year to 35 days, while cancellation rates decreased to 18.25%.
With confidence in travel at all stages now well and truly back, hotels would do well to ensure they use this increased predictability and decrease in last-minute disruptions to optimise their pricing and inventory management strategies.
This is particularly important in a dynamic market such as the UK, which saw significant monthly and daily variations in average daily rate (ADR). July, the busiest month of the year for UK hotel arrivals, witnessed the highest revenue-per-booking at £228, while in January, the quietest month, ADR fell to £157. Likewise, Fridays, the most lucrative day of the week, generated on average £18 more per stay than Saturdays and £43 more per stay than Sundays.
Hotels would also do well to stay ahead of upcoming events in their area, with SiteMinder’s Changing Traveller Report 2025 showing that nearly two-thirds of travellers globally, and 53% of Brits, are more likely to travel for an event this year than in 2024.
By mastering the data and marketing their products accordingly, UK hotels will be able to maximise revenue at peak times, while driving occupancy in quieter periods, supported by an effective and targeted channel mix. However, those who fail to take advantage of more favourable forecasting conditions, will likely find themselves falling behind their competition.
SiteMinder’s Hotel Booking Trends report is available here.
