Study: Internet Reflected Largest Rate Increases for U.S. Hotels

Based on research and data from PricewaterhouseCoopers, Smith Travel Research, TravelClick, and PhoCusWright, PricewaterhouseCoopers finds that average U.S. hotel room rates booked online increased 8.7 percent compared with a 6.8 percent estimated overall hotel room rate increase for U.S. hotels in 2006. The largest increase among online bookings, 8.9 percent, was for the "opaque" distribution channel, those third-party sources represented by online reservations that do not reveal the identity of a hotel until a reservation has been placed. The largest percentage increase in the number of reservations among all distribution channels was for branded web sites operated by hotels.