Hotelbeds has today announced a plan that responds to the strong demand for domestic hotels from the world’s largest source markets following the aftermath of COVID-19. As part of this drive, Hotelbeds plans to add an additional 10,000 new properties to its global portfolio of hotels by the end of the year.

Harnessing big data analytical capabilities, Hotelbeds has been able to closely compare the main corridors, lead time, and length of stay for each source market to more accurately predict the characteristics of the surge in demand for domestic stays.

León Herce, global sales director at Hotelbeds, said: “Following client feedback, and thanks to our own data analytics capabilities, we have detected not only the overall surge in domestic demand but the requirement for more product in secondary destinations, across all different property types.

“As you would expect, hoteliers in these destinations – many of them previously dependent on international markets that are unlikely to be travelling anytime soon – are very keen to capture the new domestic demand and we are working hard to sign them up fast.”

The initiative will be implemented initially in the USA, Canada, Mexico, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Italy, UK, UAE, Saudi Arabia, China, Thailand, Australia and New Zealand, with more countries to be included in the future.

This strategy has been strongly supported by many of Hotelbeds’ 60,000 B2B travel buyers worldwide – including tour operators, airlines, points redemption schemes and retail travel agencies – who have also clearly signalled the increase in demand for domestic properties following the pandemic.

In addition to adding more domestic properties in the above-mentioned markets, Hotelbeds is already putting in place the following actions:

• Expanding its hotel portfolio in secondary destinations in order to cover new leisure destinations relevant for domestic travellers.
• Adding more property types, for example, resorts and rural hotels.
• Increasing the availability of refundable rates to provide peace of mind for final customers.
• Reducing releases and minimum stay requirements in order to increase to the maximum availability and respond to the more last minute profile of domestic travellers.
• Launching local marketing campaigns targeted at B2B travel buyers in the selected source markets to promote domestic products at great rates this summer season.