76% of UK travellers use online travel agents when booking their getaways because they believe they will get a better deal. Similarly, 87% believe that price comparison websites showed all available rates.
But this isn’t always the case. The survey of 2,000 UK travellers was commissioned by the Intercontinental Hotels Group to mark the launch of the lowest price promise.
Despite this push by the hotel industry to promote booking direct, only 12% say they always do so. The south-west were the savviest with 18% claiming to book directly through the hotel company. The figure dropped to 10% of Londoners and 7% for consumers in Wales.
35% said that they no longer know who to trust to get the lowest rate and 45% said they would never knowingly want to overpay for anything.
The results of the survey were featured on a range of specialist travel sites such as Bighospitality.co.uk and Hotelowner.co.uk, as well as more mainstream sites including the Sun and BT.com
