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Case Study

How Bookaway Turned Ticket Sales into an Accommodation Revenue Line with Stay22

Goals

  • Bookaway already had an accommodation solution running on their platform, but they wanted to test Stay22's Search Bar Integration against it on the same traffic, to compare the performance of both solutions.

Results

  • 40x the total accommodation bookings
  • 3x the booking conversion
  • Half the cancellation rate

"We knew the accommodation demand was there. The challenge was capturing it. Stay22 solved that problem for us. Our travelers book with brands they trust, we carry no operational cost, and the numbers speak for themselves."

Shalom Zafrany
Product Manager at Bookaway

Mapping a Better Journey

BOOKAWAY.COM

The Background

Bookaway is a transport-booking platform within Travelier Group. Every traveler who buys a ticket also needs somewhere to stay, and Bookaway saw that revenue opportunity early.

 

They already had an accommodation solution running on the platform, but they wanted to test the Stay22's Search Bar Integration against it on the same traffic, to compare the performance of both solutions. Stay22’s Integration shows accommodation options tied to a traveler's route and surfaces whichever OTA is most likely to convert. Travelers book with brands they already recognize and trust. Stay22 owns the supplier relationships and the technology. The OTAs own cancellations and support, so Bookaway takes on no operational cost or lift. 

 

With Stay22's Integration, the Search Bar drove roughly 3x the booking conversion, about 40x the total bookings on the same traffic, and half the cancellation rate.

The Gap

Booking a hotel is a different decision than booking a train. Travelers trust a transport platform to move them. When it comes to where they'll sleep, most already have names in mind like Booking.com, Expedia, Hotels.com and more.

 

Travelers will happily buy a ticket from you, then book their room with Booking.com because that's the name they trust.

 

So the question for Bookaway was never whether to add accommodation. It was how to capture it.



Stay22's Search Bar Integration

Bookaway ran Stay22's Search Bar Integration against their other solution on the same traffic.

 

Four things decided it: the outcome, who owns the customer experience when a booking goes wrong, how much Bookaway would have to manage day to day, and how quickly it could go live. Stay22 came out ahead on all four.

Untitled design (24)

The results

Stay22’s Search Bar Integration drove roughly three times the booking conversions, on the order of forty times the total bookings, and about half the cancellations. It pulled further ahead on mobile, where most of Bookaway's accommodation bookings happen:

  • 40x the total bookings. Same traffic, a setup travelers actually finished.

  • 3x the booking conversion of the other solution.

  • About half the cancellation rate. Recognized OTA brands produced bookings that stuck.

  • ~87% of Stay22 bookings on mobile vs ~65% on the other solution

 

Metric

Stay22 Search Bar vs. Other Accommodation Solution

Total bookings

~40x

Booking conversion

~3x

Cancellation rate

~½ (roughly half)

Mobile share of bookings

~87% vs. ~65%

Why it worked

  1. With Stay22's Search Bar Integration, travelers bought their ticket and booked their accommodation in one session.

  2. People trust Bookaway to book their transport. When it comes to accommodation, they trust major OTAs like Booking.com and Expedia. Stay22 put the brands they already trust in front of them at the moment they were deciding, so more of them followed through and fewer cancelled.

  3. There was no operational lift on Bookaway's side either. Every cancellation and support request went through the OTAs.

 

For Bookaway, the decision was simple. The data was clear, the integration was simple, implementation was fast, and the travelers were already there.

 

About Stay22

Stay22.com is a Canadian travel tech company that offers affiliate revenue generation opportunities for events, ticketing, and travel media publications to monetize the travel intent of their audience. After six years, Stay22 is working with more than 5,000 global partners and have paid out more than $100M USD in commission payments to partners.

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