Worldwide electronic hotel revenue continued to grow in the first quarter of 2006, according to research from TravelClick, with the travel agent channel dominating.

Apart from remaining the main source of hotel e-business, representing 84.9% of total room nights booked using the internet or Global Distribution Systems (GDS), the travel agent channel also made hotels more money. It achieved an ADR of $145.57 (£78.24) – 37.1% higher than the ADR for rooms booked via the internet and a rise of 8.5% over the channel’s performance last year.

In general, revenue from GDS and key internet sites combined was up 12.9%, TravelClick’s eMonitor results show.

Electronic room nights for the first quarter increased by 7.6% to 29.8 million, while the average daily rate (ADR) increased to $139.61 (£75.05), up 4.9% on the same period last year. Average length of stay was static at 2.14 nights.

By Matthew Batham

Get your copy of Caterer and Hotelkeeper every week - click here to subscribe and save 25%.