Searching for Accommodation Online

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Which New Zealand accommodation providers are maximising their market share online?

Find out which accommodation providers are taking the lead in organic search and how they’re doing it.

FIRST has investigated the organic search engine rankings for NZ consumer searches focused on accommodation, utilising FIRST’s Ranking Based Reach (RBR) analysis framework. In addition, a consumer survey was carried out to discover what is most important for Kiwis wishing to book accommodation online.

Analysed websites include:

* aatravel.co.nz
* agoda.com
* bookabach.co.nz
* booking.com
* expedia.co.nz
* holidayhouses.co.nz
* travelbug.co.nz
* tripadvisor.co.nz
* trivago.co.nz
* wotif.co.nz

In this Accommodation Online Industry Report we discovered:

  • In our consumer survey, 4 out of 5 Kiwis search and book online for their accommodation. This shows the importance of being visible in the digital space and providing great online customer experience.
  • Currently, Wotif stands out in the search landscape, capturing a big proportion of the demand thanks to prominent organic and paid search presence.
  • Majority of the analysed accommodation providers have low RBR scores, below 15%. There is significant opportunity for these companies to improve their RBR or search engine reach – for important and popular keywords in organic search.
  • Popular search phrases are missing from most sites and in most cases very little is being done with organic search. By improving their RBR score, they will be able to seize opportunities to boost online sales revenues.
  • A well-executed digital strategy that integrates both organic and paid search should be a key customer acquisition channel for accommodation providers, driving revenue and growing the stores share of digital spend.

Accommodation Rankings Based Reach

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FIRST uses its bespoke metric called RBR (Ranking Based Reach) to estimate how well each company is ranking in search engines. RBR provides a simple way to compare a website’s search engine rankings with its competitors. RBR is an estimate of the percentage of available search traffic a website will receive for a set of phrases – this gives the sites share of search or reach. It is weighted based on the popularity of each search phrase and the relative click through rate (CTR) of each ranking position.