Recently we need to handle a software development project related to tourism in Penang. Part of the requirements need us to understand the online presence of hotel in Penang, in particular of those budget hotel or hostel. We’ve spent some time to research more than 100 budget hotels/hostels one-by-one and came out with some interesting statistic. Figure 1 shows a snapshot of our finding. We gather these data using data mining techniques with a combination of manual research effort.
Figure 1: Snapshot of part of our finding
By interpreting these data, we can have a better understanding of Penang budget hotel/hostel online presence. One interesting finding we have is most of them are very proficient in utilising popular platform to promote their hostel (Refer Figure 2). Among these, the most popular platforms are Agoda and TripAdvisor. While Booking.com and Expedia seems like a bit less popular among Penang hostels.
Figure 2: Hostel Online Presence (By %)
However, in terms of social network presence(Refer Figure 3, Figure 4), Penang hostels in general scores average. From our research, hostels which without a website, around 65% of them don’t even have Google+ profile (Did you just said “Who cares about Google+”? 
). And around 50% of them do not have Facebook page setup. Well, this could be due to social network is not the main revenue generator for some small hostels and in general the priority is lower for them.
Figure 3: Google+ Presence for Hostel Without a Website
Figure 4: Facebook Presence for Hostels Without a Website
In terms of online booking, among those which with a website online, around 52.9% of them provide online booking features to their visitors, while 47.1% of the rest are fully utilising other hotel listing sites (Like Agoda, Booking.com and others) to provide online booking.
Figure 5: How Many Website Supports Online Booking?
Conclusion
In general, Penang budget hotel or hostel are doing quite well in their online presence. In terms of hotel listing platform, most of them prefer to use Agoda and TripAdvisor in contrast to Expedia and Booking.com as their marketing channel. In terms of social network, we can conclude that it is less priority for these hostel owners. Regarding website hotel booking feature, it shows that majority of them are taking this seriously.
Author
Persizt Technology is a Penang based software development house that deliver mobile apps, website and enterprise development solution to client. Find out more from our main page.
