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Last month, TravelClick's October 2015 North American Hospitality Review revealed that North American hotels were overcoming declining reservation pace to improve their average daily rate (ADR) performance.
Now, data from the cloud-based solutions provider's latest North American Distribution Review reveals that North American hotels are continuing to overcome those challenges and are currently experiencing strong revenue growth heading into 2016.
What's more, digital and mobile bookings are driving that success.
"Not only are hoteliers having a good year from a revenue per available room perspective, but the more interesting story is the changing distribution pattern that we're seeing hotels evolve into," said TravelClick's senior industry analyst John Hach.
Revenue per available room (RevPAR) across the 25 major North American markets increased 3.1 percent year-over-year during the third quarter of 2015.
Meanwhile, online travel agents (OTAs) - including Expedia.com and Priceline.com - hotel company websites (Brand.com) and in-person travel agents (global distribution system) channels each experienced growth in the transient segment, rising 6.9 percent, 4.2 percent and 3.1 percent, respectively.
At the same time, the hotel direct channel (calls made directly to the property and walk-in customers) and the central reservation office channel (calls made to the hotel's 800-number) decreased by 7.8 percent and 3.4 percent, respectively.
"While consumers are still utilizing the more traditional hotel direct channel to book rooms, it's clear from the continuous quarterly growth across the Brand.com and OTA channels that customers of all ages are predominantly using digital and mobile methods to make their reservations," Hach said. "Along with Brand.com and OTAs, the GDS is also, once again, continuing to demonstrate growth across the board."
Those trends are expected to continue into 2016.
What's more, Hach pointed out that hoteliers are improving their RevPAR in spite of a "deceleration of occupancy growth."
Last month, Hach attributed slowed reservation pace to a variety of factors, "including concern over a global economic slowdown, financial market turbulence and the seasonal slowdown of advance booking pace."
Additional uncertainty stemming from recent terror attacks could also have an impact.
In addition to RevPAR, average daily rates (ADR) across all channels during the third quarter for 2015 increased 3.4 percent compared to the same period last year. However the hotel direct channel saw the highest room rate growth in the quarter, rising four percent year-over-year.
Looking ahead, for the final quarter of 2015, transient ADR is ahead by 3.5 percent, with the central reservation office channel generating the highest ADR growth at plus-4.5 percent. Similar fourth-quarter ADR increases are being experienced for GDS (3.8 percent), hotel direct (3.5 percent), Brand.com (2.9 percent) and OTAs (1.8 percent).
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