COVID-19 wiped out 98% of online revenue for hotels within just 7 days: report

• eMarketingEye  presents findings following a travel demand study of 90 days
• Trends closely monitored using metrics of website traffic, online bookings, revenue and conversion rate
• Report says web traffic and revenue for Lankan hotels and resorts dropped drastically along with European travel restrictions 

The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak resulted in eliminating almost entirely the revenues from brand websites of local hotels and resorts within a matter of seven days, an in-depth study on website analytics revealed.According to data gathered from 20 to 26 March 2020, an analysis by eMarketingEye showed that the COVID-19 managed to wipe out 98 percent of the revenue from the brand websites of Sri Lankan hotels and resorts during just a week, compared to the corresponding period the previous year. The digital marketing agency that specializes in the local hospitality industry has come out with a series of findings after studying the travel demand for Sri Lanka during a period of around 90 days. The trends were closely monitored using the metrics of website traffic, online bookings, revenue and conversion rate.

While international travel demand only started to show a gradual decline from the beginning of March 2020, analytics revealed that travel related queries on Sri Lanka peaked during mid-March 2020 due to travel bans imposed by the government of countries severely affected by COVID-19.

“After travel restrictions were imposed for several European regions around 14 March 2020, the web traffic and revenue for Sri Lankan Hotels and Resorts saw a more drastic drop,” the report by eMarketingEye said.

The report added that when analyzing data from 15 to 31 of March 2020, the total website sessions saw a 77 percent drop, whereas total conversions contracted by 97 percent compared to the same period last year.
Similarly, total revenue saw a 97 percent drop while the looker-to-booker conversion rate of the sites also showed 84 percent decline compared to the corresponding period of the previous year.

eMarketingEye shared that majority of Sri Lankan hotels and resorts saw a shift in revenue from international markets to the local market at the beginning of March 2020.

It pointed out that over 65 percent of the revenue was generated by the local market 
in March.

“However, this changed drastically, and everything came to a standstill as travel bans and island wide curfew came into play,” the agency said.