Mobile biggest strategic focus area for OTAs

In 2023, more than half of OTA gross bookings are projected to come from mobile, according to new Phocuswright data

Expedia and Booking.com emphasize the importance of their apps as a channel to win and retain customers for the long term. Several factors, among them reducing their marketing spend and their reliance on Google, along with their need to acquire first-party data, have made direct customer interaction via their own sites and apps increasingly important for OTAs.

Key takeaways

• Expedia's app users drive 2.5 times the gross profit and repeat business over an 18-month period compared to a non-app user. At the end of 2022, Expedia had 60% more active app users than any prior year;
• Booking saw about 45% of its room nights booked through its app in 2022, a 13-percentage point increase over 2019;
• Forty-seven percent of OTA gross bookings were booked via mobile in 2022, nearly ten points higher than in 2019. Mobile share will continue to grow as the large OTAs continue their push to get customers to transact on their apps.

Get the full story at Phocuswire