Hotels.com benefits from post-COVID travel surge

After years of disrupted travel plans due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Americans are ready to travel in 2023. According to AAA, international travel is up more than 200% from 2022, and hotel bookings are up more than 300%.

Using QuestBrand data, we can see that Hotels.com experienced a significant increase in brand equity (+4.1) from Q4 2022 to Q1 2023. Brand equity measures the value consumers see in a brand at a particular moment in time. The booking platform also saw significant increases across all four brand equity components – familiarity (+4.0), perceived quality (+4.1), purchase consideration (+3.8), and perceived momentum (+4.6). 

Hotels.com Brand Equity Q4 2022 vs Q1 2023

QuestBrand. Base: General population of US adults. Pre: 10/1/22-12/31/22, n=1,357. Post: 1/1/23-3/31/23, n=1,317.

While Americans have clearly caught the travel bug, Hotels.com is not waiting for travelers to come to them. Instead, the popular booking platform has capitalized on consumers’ travel enthusiasm with the launch of several creative ad campaigns. 

Interested in learning more about travel industry trends? Download our Travel Industry Snapshot for brand rankings and industry insights.  

Where’s Your Perfect Somewhere?

At the end of January, Hotels.com launched a series of “Perfect 10” videos on the company’s social platforms (including YouTube and Instagram).

In each video, an influencer or celebrity (Busy Philipps, Evan Mock, and Kwame Onwuachi) shares their favorite hotel memories. Each celebrity explains what has made a hotel their “perfect somewhere,” a play off Hotels.com’s advertising slogan “find your perfect somewhere.”

Unlike a standard commercial, these vignettes do not end with a call to action to book through hotels.com. Instead, these stories forge an emotional connection with the viewer. They remind consumers of the magic of travel, and hope to inspire trip planning.

Embracing Their NBA Partnership

Hotels.com has been the official travel partner of the National Basketball Association (NBA) since 2020. However, 2023 marked the first time that Hotels.com launched a television commercial celebrating this partnership.

The commercials first aired the weekend of February 17, during the NBA All-Star Weekend, and they will continue to play throughout the 2023 season.

The TV spot stars actors Sam Richardson and Ike Barinholtz, who play two bellhops. The men humorously discuss what features draw NBA stars to their hotel – like pima cotton sheets, larger robes, and longer beds. 

Hotels.com’s QuestBrand sales conversion funnel data suggests that the commercials caught the attention of NBA fans.

Below, the graph compares the percentage of NBA fans who say they would recommend Hotels.com to the percentage of overall US adults that would say the same. While NBA fans consistently recommend Hotels.com more than the general population of US adults, this gap widens throughout Q1 2023.

Recommend Hotels.com – NBA Fans vs General Population of US Adults

QuestBrand. 10/1/22-3/31/23. Base: NBA Fans, n=706. Base: General population of US adults, n=2,674. 

Hotels.com was smart to lean into advertising as Americans flock to book flights and hotel rooms. Hotels.com’s actions are helping keep the booking platform top of mind during this year of rampant travel.