The latest edition of the Duetto Pulse Report, which tracks booking data for May 2021, shows continued positive news for North America in terms of booking activity but some volatility for Latin America heading further into the summer season.
In terms of pick-up, new bookings are up again this month. Bookings made in May 2021 had the most significant jump in June (up 116 percent month-on-month). Both July and August bookings show strong momentum with increases of 76 percent and 98 percent, respectively.
Web traffic searches for May grew by another 12 percent month-on-month and for June by another 34 percent. July and August are showing even further growth, up by 106 percent and 102 percent, respectively.
Booking pace is continuing to increase due to the strong growth in net new bookings, particularly for the summer months. While for much of the pandemic pace remained behind by 50 to 55 percent, more recently, there’s been steady improvement. For example, in March pace lagged behind 2019 down 40 percent. In April that improved to down 30 percent, and in May it improved further to down 12 percent.
Volatility in LATAM
Latin America as a whole continues to show volatility in terms of net new booking activity. Within the Americas, LATAM experienced the most significant growth of in-the-month-for-the-month bookings in May up 65 percent. In June, it is showing a healthy growth of 73 percent (versus April’s growth of 52 percent for June), but further into the summer months, the growth slows substantially. Continuing with the extremely short-term booking trend observed last month in the region, growth for July and August was only 20 percent and 19 percent respectively.
In terms of web traffic, with the exception of searches made in May for May stays, web traffic into Latin America continues to show positive momentum. The rate of month-over-month growth has further increased since the last Pulse Report for June and beyond.
Looking at on-the-books data, while pace compared to 2020 is significantly ahead for LATAM, compared to 2019, it remains slightly behind. June 2021 is pacing behind June 2019 by 14 percent (a further slip to the deficit of 9 percent for June observed last month).
In both April and May, it was reported that the summer months were pacing in line with 2019, which signaled the first time a region paced ahead of a pre-pandemic period. While this month June, July, and August are all pacing slightly behind 2019 (down 14 percent, down 6 percent, and down 9 percent respectively), the Pulse data shows all months from September 2021 and beyond are pacing ahead of the same time two years ago.
“It feels like things are really picking up, and it’s certainly an exciting time. We see a continuation of the positive trends we have been reporting on in the last few months. For North America, May saw the most significant jump in new bookings for stays in June. However, July and August bookings show strong momentum as well. We look forward to seeing that continue,” said Duetto’s Director of Hospitality Solutions, Hannah Weller Barrise. “We will continue to look to web traffic as an indicator of consumer demand and look forward to more good progress over the summer months.”
