Today, Bitkom published the results of a representative survey regarding online booking of holiday trips. According to the results, free travel cancellations are an important criterion for the majority of German consumers.
For this study, Bitkom Research, on behalf of the digital association Bitkom, interviewed a total of 1,003 German consumers aged 16 and above by telephone about holiday bookings on the Internet.
These are further details:
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Being able to cancel a trip or accommodation free of charge is an important criterion for 83 percent of respondents when choosing and booking online. 55 percent consider this option 'very important' and 28 percent consider it 'rather important'.
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Every seventh respondent used the option for free cancellation in order to book several hotels for one trip and to only decide on one shortly before departure.
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As a reason for this booking behavior, seven percent of respondents mentioned the opportunity to spontaneously decide on an accommodation. Another five percent wanted to wait for the cheapest offer and four percent wanted to make sure that their hotel was not overbooked in the end.
Bernhard Rohleder, Managing Director of Bitkom, commented: "This year's Easter holidays are completely different than usual. Families cannot visit each other and those who have booked a holiday cannot travel as planned. Further efforts for reimbursement contribute to the overall disappointment of many consumers. In addition, it is currently unclear how things work out with the already planned summer vacations. In the current situation, the possibility of online cancellations free of charge would be a great relief for many consumers."
Source: Bitkom
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