Split has welcomed more than 10 million guests on Booking.com!
Booking.com announced that the number of guest arrivals since 2007 would exceed 3 billion for accommodation facilities on their site. Out of the total, 750 million guests spent their stay in non-hotel accommodation units that include homes, apartments and other unique facilities, reports HRTurizam on April 26, 2018.
Over the same period, more than a million arrivals through Booking.com have been recorded in more than 400 cities around the world. Thus, Split found a place on the list of 29 cities around the world, including Rome, London, Dubai, Melbourne and Kuala Lumpur, which has welcomed more than 10 million guests.
The Booking.com story began by offering non-hotel accommodation facilities and continued by including the first apartment on the platform in 2000. The first mountain lodge was added in 2005, and the first accommodation on board a boat in 2006. Today, Booking.com offers more than 28 million registered accommodation units in its offer, and travelers can choose accommodations in more than 148,000 destinations in more than 220 countries and territories around the world.
In Croatia, some of the longest available accommodation facilities on the site include Pool Apartments Plitvice Lakes located in Grabovac just 9 km from the Plitvice Lakes National Park, Casa Romantica La Parenzana located near Buje in Istria and the stone villa Varoš located in Split in the immediate vicinity of Diocletian’s Palace.
“It’s really fun to see how far we have come, especially with our humble beginnings in mind. We’ve been able to grow with incredible accommodation facilities all over the world and awaken the passion for exploration among travelers and encourage them to discover the world, “says Olivier Grémillon, vice president of Booking.com, adding: “It’s also exciting to look into the future and what our travel sector will bring us. New destinations are emerging, technology is developing, and the desire of travelers to explore and discover new experiences is only growing. Approximately 40 percent of our active users booked an alternative type of accommodation in the last 12 months. These unique experiences will continue to be the heart of travel in the future, even more than today.”
Enabling travelers to feel at home even in the most remote parts of the world has never been more important, with the hosts playing the most crucial role.
A survey of 21,500 global travelers reveals that nearly two-thirds of travelers (63%) thought their stay was better thanks to the owner of the accommodation who went out of their way and took a step further, and 62% of travelers appreciated the “knowledge and experience” that owners of local accommodation facilities could share with them.
Booking.com’s Guest Review Awards this year showed an increasing demand for alternative types of accommodation. Around 73% of the awards were given to holiday homes, apartments and other unique accommodation facilities, including the boats and igloos to accommodations with the hosts and country houses.
For the second year in a row, apartments have surpassed the category of hotels and received the highest number of awards, making up more than a third of all award-winning accommodation facilities in the world (36%). Also, for the second year in a row, four of the five most rewarding types of accommodation in 2018 were alternative accommodation: apartments (269,649), hotels (148,913), private accommodation (78,574), accommodation with breakfast (66,697) and cottages (56,303).
The impressive figure published by Booking.com shows that travelers increasingly show interest in a variety of unique accommodation experiences, and this is reflected in the Guest Review Awards and recent Booking.com surveys.
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