Pegasus Solutions has revealed impact of the Japan and New Zealand earthquakes, as well as political unrest in the Middle East and North Africa on the global travel industry. A special edition of the Pegasus View report details changes in historic and forward-looking bookings, average daily rate (ADR), length of stay (LOS) and revenue for hotels affected by the natural disasters and political protests.
Japan’s booking data has seen a drastic change since the 11 March earthquake and tsunami, with net reservation volumes declining from a year-on-year increase of +26.1% on March 10 to a triple digit decrease on 11 March when the 9.0-magnitude earthquake hit. In the days following, this decrease was accompanied by triple-digit drops in net revenue and radical fluctuations in LOS, which swung by more than 1,000 percentage points between 11 and 19 March. Average LOS spiked to +551.9% greater than prior year for the day of the disaster, plummeting to -521.0% eight days later. Analysis of the Japan earthquake also includes data from Hawaii, which experienced an immediate drop in bookings from +67.4% over 2010 on 10 March to a -23.8% drop on 12 March.
In the Middle East and North Africa reservations for the region overall dropped off from steady +40% increases for the three months leading into widespread protests to a smaller +16.4% increase in February. Rates and LOS also dropped immediately, and forward-looking data demonstrated significant declines in reservations, ADR, LOS and revenue. Net bookings as of February for stays through August declined 85%, and rates declined by as much as 37.2% through the same period. Analysis also extends to key travel markets affected, including Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Israel.
“We anxiously watched to find out how our hotel customers were affected by these historic events, as we did last year while waiting for the volcanic ash from Eyjafjallajokull to settle,” said Mike Kistner, CEO of Pegasus Solutions. “This special report of The Pegasus View gives us a more complete picture of what happened immediately leading up to and after these events, as well as what the business on the books shows for the coming months in both ASPAC and EMEA.”
Data for New Zealand, which experienced a 6.3-magnitude quake on 22 February, shows a dramatic drop in net bookings that day, falling 80% year-on-year. LOS increased as much as 82.8% the day of the quake as travellers could not easily depart due to safety concerns and infrastructure damage, but returned to pre-quake levels within weeks. Helping buffer the downward influence on revenue, total ADR for New Zealand remained higher than last year. Dropping sporadically below prior year levels, ADR frequently registered double-digit increases over 2010 during the weeks following the earthquake.
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