Hotels apps are available but guests aren’t downloading them, analysts find

Hotels are creating apps for guests but few are being downloaded, according to a new report. Continue reading →

Hotels are creating apps for guests but few are being downloaded, according to a new report.

Digital performance analysts L2 reviewed 311 Hotel Index brand  apps to benchmark performance and identify best practices.

It found that more than 90% of brands maintain a presence in the Apple App Store but only 14% of apps reviewed ranked in the top 1,500 apps in their native categories (eg Travel) in the past year.

The Hilton Honors and Marriott International are the only apps to feature in the top 30 travel apps.

Results also suggested that the more an app is updated, the more popular it is. Both Hilton and Marriott’s apps are updated an average of 13 times a year.

L2 also found that guests report higher satisfaction at hotels that incorporate mobile apps into a hotel stay, yet 38% of guests don’t use them during their stay.

Of the hotel apps reviewed, 10% were released in 2017, some of which achieved high ranks immediately after release. But L2 found that new is not always best as it found a positive correlation between update frequency and rank in the App Store, regardless of age, indicating that brands that regularly update and improve their apps stand at a “clear advantage” in driving continued customer engagement.