Four Booking Peaks and Hotel Operating Rhythm for the Holidays

Key points

• Citing multiple OTA platforms, hotel bookings in many popular cities rose over 35% year on year, while county-level hotel interest grew 32%.
• The visitor peak has shifted from a single peak to four waves: Mid-Autumn, extended-leave shoulder, National Day main period and late-holiday shoulder.
• Tongcheng Travel data shows long-haul travel bookings rose over 25% year on year, with high-quality hotel bookings up nearly 10 percentage points.
• Qunar data shows county-level hotel interest grew 32% year on year, with Jiuzhaigou, Burqin and Yangshuo among popular destinations.
• The article advises hotels to focus on the September 28-30 transition period, when platform data shows bookings rose 52% year on year, accounting for 15% of the holiday total.
• It recommends staffing by peak, with the staff-to-room ratio temporarily raised by at least 15%-20% during full occupancy.