21
Cover Story
Online bookings by size
95%
92%
8%
5%
Full-day vs hourly bookings
Meetings
for 1-20
delegates
50%
2018
2019
Meetings
for 21-40
delegates
40%
30%
20%
greater flexibility, with 2-3-hour
slots being most popular during
morning hours.
It is also interesting to note that
hourly-bookings are more
commonly being offered by
non-hotel venues, with co-working
spaces an obvious popular choice.
Meetingsbooker.com’s CEO, Ciaran
Delaney, says he expects hotels to
start experimenting with
hourly-bookings before too long
and that, he notes, will lead to
growth.
Despite hotels remaining the
most popular destination for
meetings, currently holding 49%
market share, their ultimate lack of
flexibility means that they are
beginning to lose out on online
meetings reservations, down 3%.
Non-hotel venues, in particular
co-working spaces and business
centres, are now receiving 10%
more reservations, accounting for
23% of total bookings. It is also of
note that specialist conference
centres currently hold 19% of the
market, down 7%.
Are hotels too old-fashioned in
how they view meetings, or at least
how they are booked, and is this
reflected by them losing market
share for online bookings?
Delaney says it is a matter of
legacy. He explains: “A lot of
alternative meeting venues are
independent organisations and
relatively new, so they immediately
start selling online. Hotels are often
part of larger international groups
that have been selling meetings
This trend is expected
to continue to see
growth, as more global
corporate organisations
with larger meetings
rollout online sourcing
technology.
10%
0%
2018
Full-day meeting
bookings
2019
Hourly meeting
bookings
Bookings by time of day
Morning
Afternoon
Evening
5%
10%
20%
manually for decades, so they
have legacy technology in place
that naturally takes longer to
change. We are now working with
many global hotel groups to drive
increased automation via their
own websites, combining both
online bookings as well as faster
RFP solutions.”
Commenting on the rising
popularity of remote working and
flexible co-working spaces,
Delaney notes that they are here
to stay. He says: “They are very
popular locations for smaller
meetings for under 20 attendees
www.conference-news.co.uk
30%
40%
50%
number of venues
providing data for
research
and who don’t need
accommodation. We are also
seeing hotels gradually adapt their
offering to cater for this growing
segment. When you walk into the
lobby of a CitzenM Hotel how many
people do you see sipping coffee
and working on their laptops?”
Elsewhere in the report, it is
revealed that the attendee size for
meetings booked online has not
changed significantly compared to
Meetingsbooker.com’s previous
research. The vast majority of
meetings booked online range
between one and 20 delegates,