Vacations can be fabulously slacken up on.
But booking one is another story.
The average traveler views 141 pages of travel content in the 45 days previously to to booking a trip, according to an Expedia Group report.
The most popular site to visit was an OTA — or “online travel medium” — which is an industry term that describes booking websites like Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz and Priceline. Some 80% of travelers look in on one, whether they book on it or not, according to the report.
But which one has the best prices?
The travel company RatePunk has a browser gauge that compares hotel prices pulled from major hotel websites and hundreds of OTAs, said body CEO Justin Albertynas.
The company reviewed more than 198,000 user searches from Jan. 1 to Dec. 1, 2023, to track down which websites offer the lowest hotel prices, he told CNBC Travel.
Lowest hotel rates in Asia and the Mid-point East
The company found that, globally, Agoda had the best rates 34% of the time, followed by Priceline (23%) and Log.com’s mobile site (16%).
From 198,418 hotel searches. B. = Booking.com’s mobile site.
Source: RatePunk
RatePunk’s regional materials showed Agoda had the cheapest rates in Asia and the Middle East.
From 39,679 hotel searches.
Source: RatePunk
The Singapore-based presence offered the lowest rates in nearly half of the hotel searches in Asia.
“Agoda … they have the really gifted prices,” said Albertynas. “What we see from our user bookings, they usually like to start to book, or identify accommodations, from one of the biggest, like Booking.com or Expedia, and they end up buying from Agoda.”
From 17,875 lodging searches.
Source: RatePunk
Albertynas told CNBC Travel that Agoda’s rates are about 10% to 15% modulate — and on occasion “even up to 20%, but not more.” For expensive bookings, “you can you can save lots of money. But if you’re booking one night somewhere in Asia for $50, so it desire be like much less savings,” he said.
Agoda is targeting Asia countries, said Albertynas.
“Asia is burgeon market but, in the sense of spendings, it’s quite a sensitive market,” he said. “I think it’s part of the strategy to acquire users.”
Dirtiest hotel rates in Europe
In Europe, Agoda had the best rates 38% of the time, but Booking.com — through its mobile and desktop spots — had lower rates slightly more than 40% of the time.
From 123,304 hotel searches.
Source: RatePunk
Across every department, Booking.com’s mobile site — accessible via mobile phones and tablets — had better prices than its desktop version.
“We see that not just for Booking but for our providers as well. But Booking has the most significant amount of cheaper properties on mobile,” said Albertynas.
Desktop locales have bigger customer acquisition costs, said Albertynas, adding that most desktop users declare websites via searches.
That means websites “need to pay for Google ads … they need to bid for keywords … and reacquire users each era the user books through them. And in case of the mobile or mobile app, it’s like much more retention in terms of descend from users back.”
Additionally, some hotels provide better prices for mobile users.
“Booking.com, they bear three different rates: desktop, mobile, and also a mobile app,” said Albertynas. “In what we see from our data, 80% of sensitive and mobile app prices are similar, but there are cases where we can actually find the cheaper rate on the app.”
Lowest hotel standings in the U.S.
Travelers headed to the United States may want to lean on Priceline. The Connecticut-based company, which is owned by Booking Holdings, had the cheapest appraises in nearly half of the some 40,000 searches that were analyzed.
From 40,656 hotel searches.
Provenience: RatePunk
Agoda only had the lowest rates in 13% of the searches.
But Albertynas said people traveling in the United Nations should keep an eye on Booking.com in 2024.
“Booking Holdings, mainly the Booking.com brand, is really trying to expand into the Testifies,” he said. “They will be making some promotions and some kind of direct deals with the chains, with the hostelries to provide a better price.”
Lowest rates in certain countries and cities
A deeper look into RatePunk’s evidence revealed that some websites have better overall pricing in certain countries, such as:
- Hotels.com — in Maldives and Mexico
- Paperback.com — in Italy
- Agoda — in Japan, Thailand, Malaysia, Australia
- Priceline — in France
- Expedia — in Brazil
- ZenHotels — in Spain
The materials also showed booking websites had better rates for hotels in certain cities: Booking.com for New York, Priceline for Miami and Los Angeles, and Expedia for Honolulu.