Travel service Tutu on how the online hotel booking segment has changed after the departure of Booking

CrimeaPRESS reports:

How the segment of online booking of hotels and apartments has been transformed in a year after the departure of Booking and Airbnb services from Russia, what new trends have appeared in the behavior of travelers and how the relationship between aggregators and hoteliers has changed — says Igor Sivets, member of the board of directors of the travel service Tutu.

Impact of leaving Booking on the business of Russian services

A year ago, the hotel booking segment in Russia was predominantly a market of one dominant player. Now the situation has changed: the sphere of the hotel business, which previously was not very interested in large companies, has attracted many serious online players. Now, among the various resources for booking accommodation in Russia, it is easy to choose a platform that suits a specific user request and is convenient for him.

The trend we are seeing lately is — the emergence of large outreach advertising campaigns and the strengthening of contextual advertising. At least five of the largest aggregators and travel platforms have come out with large hotel-related advertising campaigns.

How Tutu works in the hotel market

Tutu travel service is also interested in the hotel niche: it has become one of the priority areas for us. In the 2022 year we added hotels to our app, where you can also buy tickets for trains, planes and buses. We increased investments in this area: we launched outreach campaigns (including on TV) and invested in product development.

We are working to reduce traveler anxiety and help them make choices. In the 2022 year, Tutu launched the Settlement Guarantee. We have marked more than 6 hotels all over Russia with this label, and their number is growing. We help clients if the hotel does not see the reservation or payment, or overbooking occurs, or the guest is offered a room of a different category than he booked. This doesn’t happen often, but it does happen. We contact the hotel and resolve the issue so that the traveler is still settled. If it doesn’t work — we select another option, we pay the transfer costs and compensate for the cost of a new armor, which can be up to twice as expensive.

Tutu has been collecting reviews on airlines, trains, bus carriers and hotels for several years. These are hundreds of thousands of responses, on the basis of which the average flight rating is derived. For example, about trains, we have collected more than 600 reviews: travelers write about food, the work of conductors, the condition of the cars and other parameters. Every year, Tutu releases a ranking of the best trains based on the feedback received. We are working to provide the most complete and reliable information to the client and on hotels: these are reviews with ratings, and photos, and videos from different angles. The more data, the easier it is for the traveler to make an informed choice. But it will take time to collect a lot of reviews.

Changes in the behavior of travelers and hoteliers

We are noticing a sharp increase (about two times) in bookings directly through the websites of the hotels themselves. If in January 2022 the share of bookings directly in hotels was at the level of 25%, then for the current moment, according to various estimates, it exceeded % and continues to grow.

Relations between hoteliers and aggregators have changed over the year. Immediately after Booking left Russia, hoteliers tried to quickly find sites for sale and contacted aggregators themselves to stay with them. Hoteliers needed to reorganize as quickly as possible, because it was Booking that brought them a significant proportion of customers.

Now that new domestic accommodation booking services have entered the market, hoteliers already have a choice. They look at the conditions, compare services, commission, and calmly decide where they want to sell. At the same time, as a result of the departure of the dominant player and increased competition in the market, the average commission percentage offered by hoteliers has decreased.

2023Tutu travel service is the Russian travel service No. 1 (GfK cross-media panel data, March 2018), where you can buy tickets for the trains , planes and buses, view suburban train schedule, find tour packages, book hotels, issue business trip, select thematic tours, expeditions or excursions. The Tutu travel service has been operating since the middle 20 of the year and has a monthly audience of site visitors in 20 million unique users. According to SimilarWeb data for January 2023, the Tutu service website (tutu.ru) is one of the top 20 most popular in the world in the Travel category.