French Hotels are Waiting for “Revenge Travelers”

A new study asked French travelers to share their wishes and desires in order to estimate their holidaymaking sentiments and readiness to travel. This is an important metric because hotels in Paris, Marseille, Nice, and other French cities are still dependent on domestic travel as the pandemic is not over.

The results of the survey hint at the bright future as 3 out of 4 respondents are hoping to travel the same as they did before the pandemic (43%) or even want to travel more (33%). Only 6.5% of French travelers say they want to limit their trips. Finally, 2.35% of the French respondents plan to never travel again after the COVID-19 pandemic. This is significantly fewer people (-8%) than a year ago.

What do travelers expect from hotels in France these days? Well, it looks like they keep their expectations high. The vast majority of respondents (95%) expect hotels to offer accommodation that fit high standards, and only 5% expect quality that is lower than before the pandemic. Out of this 95%, 43% expect higher standards compared to the pre-pandemic level, and 53% expect to find the same quality. It looks like hotels will now have to review the services they provide as the customer expectations are growing.

The survey revealed another interesting trend – the growing “revenge travel”. This term is used to describe the urge to travel again and make up for the time lost and vacations that failed during the pandemic. For hotels, this is important news as they need many customers to recover from the losses caused by the pandemic. COVID-19 has also changed some preferences of today’s travelers. For example, only 1% of tourists called contactless technology a top priority. This year, the importance of contactless payments and services has grown more than seven times.

French travelers support the idea of using personal data to ensure a better hotel stay. As many as 79.5% of them say they are fine with hotels using their personal data. These days, hotels need to use that information to improve their offers and use smart technology to ensure a safer and more enjoyable experience for their guests. As hotel bookings often have a last-minute character or can be canceled at any time, businesses in this area need to be able to react quickly and have a deeper understanding of the guest data. Meanwhile, hotels in France have just reached a new high in bookings since March 2020.