Duetto’s Pulse Report Shows Driving Distances Keep Climbing in Search of Getaways Louisiana, Tennessee, Colorado, Nevada, California led states in Labor Day hotel bookings — Photo by Duetto

The latest edition of Duetto's Pulse Report, which tracks key hotel business metrics from August 24 - September 6, shows significant increases in performance for the hotel markets of North America, boosted by the Labor Day holiday weekend. This is the first true boost to hotel performance since the COVID-19 pandemic took hold and is a breath of fresh air for what have been highly restricted markets, which will continue to wax and wane in the months ahead.

"People's determination to travel is resilient. Our data shows us, from hotels across the nation, people are willing to spend longer hours in the car than ever before to arrive at a destination of leisure," said David Woolenberg, CEO of Duetto. "One surprise over the holiday weekend was an increase in travel across the great state of Tennessee. While bookings in Nashville were down, people were enjoying the rest of the state. It's a great example of people opting for more remote locations, as opposed to urban."

Overall trends in North American hotel bookings over Labor Day, in comparison with the prior 14 weeks, show:

  • Traditional drive-to markets saw positive increases in new bookings as well as an increase in demand, which indicates our drive radius has increased in search of leisure. For example, Colorado saw a 432% increase; Tennessee (if you take out Nashville) a 439% increase; Louisiana a 590% increase; Nevada a 272% increase; California increased 283%; and Florida increased 189%.
  • Remote and rural locations are often being favored over urban destinations. (Colorado, Tennessee, Nevada)
  • Travelers are willing to drive further distances in lieu of air travel. (Louisiana, California)
  • New York City saw its largest uptick in net new bookings, up 318%, over the prior 14 weeks. Although well below 2019 numbers, these numbers show a positive response to some restrictions lifting and lowered COVID rates.

Again, remote and rural locations fared very well over the Labor Day weekend, some with bookings rivaling or surpassing 2019. One innovative hotel brand and Duetto customer specializing in luxury Airstream experiences, AutoCamp, saw bookings up 37% from Labor Day 2019 at its Yosemite property. "We're so grateful to provide an option for those looking to get away in these unprecedented times," said Vinny Cuneo, Head of Sales and Revenue of AutoCamp. "Each of our Airstream Suites is perfectly set up for self-isolation complete with custom-designed fire pits, and private decks."

About Duetto

Duetto delivers a suite of SaaS cloud-native applications for hospitality businesses to optimize every booking opportunity for greater revenue impact. The unique combination of hospitality experience and technology leadership drives Duetto to look for innovative solutions to industry challenges. The software as a service platform allows hotels, casinos, and resorts to leverage real-time dynamic data sources and actionable insights into pricing and demand across the enterprise.

More than 6,000 hotel and casino resort properties in more than 60 countries have partnered to use Duetto's applications, which include GameChanger for pricing, ScoreBoard for intelligent reporting, and BlockBuster for contracted-business optimization.

Duetto was named the world's #1 revenue management system in 2022, 2023, and 2024 in the HotelTechAwards.

For more information, please visit https://www.duettocloud.com/.