India Ranks 5th among Hotels with Best Business Outlook

A global biannual survey, ‘TripAdvisor 2012 Industry Index’, ranks India at the fifth position among the hotels with best business outlook across the world, the top ones in the list being Indonesia, Brazil, Russia and the U.S. respectively; while Greece came last in the list.

This largest hotel survey in the world done by the travel site TripAdvisor reveals some startling findings about hotel profitability; which markets have the best and worst economic outlook; and how tech-savvy, mobile device-wielding travelers are changing the industry. More than 25,000 hotels across the world, in which 1,500 were from India, participated in the survey.

Nikhil Ganju, Country Manager of the site said, “Most survey results for India cue a positive industry sentiment. In fact, we designed an industry scale based on survey response on economic and business outlook of properties, which indicate better than average business health for India, which ranks second in the APAC (Asia Pacific) region and fifth in the world.”

The present ranking appeared more vivid from the staffing plans for the second half of 2012 in the country, as India has already ranked the highest among all other nations in the world included in the study for staff turnover based on the increased staff levels. 

Nikhil Ganju further added that as per the survey results, though Indian hoteliers recognize the importance of social and mobile marketing, they are slow at adopting their use to connect with current and potential customers, compared to global numbers.

50 Percent of APAC Respondents Optimistic on Economy

The report says that 50 percent of Asia-Pacific respondents reported optimism that the economy would improve in the remaining half of the year. It added that hoteliers in APAC, North America andLatin America were twice likely to report being profitable in the last six months than the hoteliers in the EMEA (Europe Middle East and Africa) region, who appeared to be the least optimistic about the future economy. The survey also said that 66 percent respondents supported the claim that the economy will improve a little/lot in the second half of the year.

In the present survey, Indonesia and India have the highest proportion of respondents In APAC region who have reported their business as extremely profitable (six percent for both) or very profitable (38 percent for Indonesia and 29 percent for India) in the last six months.

39 percent of the respondents from India stated that they were likely to increase their staff; meanwhile most of the other respondents in the APAC reported that there would be no change in their staffing levels in the coming six months.

In 2012 so far, room rate discounts and advanced amenities are the two major special customer attractions put forward by various hotels worldwide and India have followed this global trend. In the country, more than 50 percent businesses have offered discounts on room rate and 48 percent have given access to special amenities.

U.S. Figures

30 percent of Hoteliers from America reported to have been extremely or very profitable within the last six months, which was greater than the figure (27 percent) came in the last Industry Index survey conducted in December, 2011. Across North America, larger accommodations (with over 50 rooms) reported to have more profited than the smaller properties (with lesser than 50 rooms).

In the U.S., the respondents’ economic outlook has diminished slightly, as according to the present study, 62 percent expect the economy to improve, while it was 65 percent in the last year’s survey. Based on the size of the hotels, the economic outlook varied: 67 percent of larger hotels and 57 percent of the smaller hotels expected economic conditions to improve a little/lot in the next six months.

But the survey reveals that a greater percentage of Mexican (21 percent) and Caribbean (20 percent) hoteliers plan to increase their staff size than their counterparts in the U.S. (15 percent). Meanwhile, hoteliers in France (6 percent) and the U.K. (8 percent) are the least to add new employees.

Based on respondents’ claim to use social media to engage with travelers, Malaysia ranked the first with 89 percent followed by Indonesia (84 percent) and Mexico (83 percent), while U.S. fell behind with only a 69 percent.