Last month, my husband and I were looking for travel packages around Pakistan to book a comfortable and relaxing, but affordable vacation. While going through the list of amenities listed on websites, I became curious about what travelers actually look for when booking a hotel. After doing some in depth research, I was able to come up with a list of what the Pakistani traveler looks for while making a hotel booking, based on data provided by Jovago.com.
Here are some categories we were able to retrieve information about, based on the search queries provided on our website:
What facilities are most important?
Air Conditioning
It isn’t surprising that in a country like Pakistan, air conditioning is considered as the most important facility when making a booking. This year Pakistan did not witness much of a winter season which made the requirements for AC’s consistently remain number one. Imagine staying somewhere without any AC’s in the summer! It would definitely be my worst nightmare – AC’s are the first thing I make sure my hotel or guest house has.
WiFi
The technology boom seems to have also influenced our vacation requirements! WiFi being number two is not surprising at all. Individuals who travel, both for leisure and work, do seem to be quite attached to their phones – at all times! When I travel, I make sure I don’t connect my phone to WiFi unless I’m in the hotel or guest house, because it definitely distracts one from being a tourist and soaking in the surroundings.
Swimming Pool
Pakistani’s like to swim! Swimming pool was rated as the third most important facility when choosing your hotel. I was pleasantly surprised to see we give our exercise importance during holidays.
What standard of hotel are people generally booking?
When people travel they like to be relatively comfortable. Our data shows us that 28% of Pakistani travelers chose three star hotels, and 26% chose two stars. The reason behind this could be that the average traveler would rather spend more money on the actual vacation than on where they are staying, because only 24% chose four star hotels, where as 4% chose five stars. Lastly, 18% chose one star hotels – probably those who are traveling for business for very limited time. As per our data, 69% of our travelers look for the best value as opposed to 31% who look for the quality of the hotel.
What was the most unique booking?
Bookings on jovago.com ranged from PKR 1000 per night to PKR 45,000 per night. The varying price shows us that hotels and guest houses were booked by people with different purchasing powers – Jovago’s large hotel portfolio has made the site useful for all! Another unique factor regarding bookings is that the longest booking was made for 24 nights! Whoever it was really wanted to explore Pakistan, and literally made him/herself feel at home staying at one place for so many nights! Lastly, the most remote booking made via Jovago was at Four Brother Hotel which is near Sost, Karkoram Mountain.
The information shared was provided by Jovago.com, Pakistan’s No.1 Online Hotel Booking portal, a venture of Rocket Internet.
