Current trends in the development of online sales and their impact on the profitability of the hotel

The purpose of this article is to identify current trends in the development of online sales and assess their impact on the profitability of the hotel in modern conditions, to analyze the features of direct sales through the hotel’s website and sales through Online Travel Agencies (OTA). The assessment of the current state of the hotel services market after the departure of the company is given “Booking.com “ and leading international hotel chains. Priority segments and sales methods of the hotel product have been established. When determining the online sales channel, it is necessary to take into account the type of customer segment (corporate groups and individual guests, tourist groups and individual tourists) and the type of sale (via the Internet or open sale). The difficulties faced by active consumers of tourist and hotel services are revealed. The statistics of OTA bookings for 2024 are analyzed. In particular, it was found that the leaders in the number of bookings among OTA are the companies Ostrovok, Yandex Travel and Daily.ru” with a total market share of more than 50%. The importance of evaluating the profitability of a sales channel through a website or through an OTA is emphasized when choosing the optimal ratio of these promotion channels. Hotel management should evaluate the profitability of various online sales channels. The dynamics of online and offline sales in 2019-2025 in the global tourism and hotel market is analyzed. In 2024, online sales of services accounted for approximately 70%, while offline sales accounted for approximately 30%. In these conditions, hotels must find a reasonable sales format ratio for themselves. The practical significance of the study is to determine the organizational and economic conditions for increasing the profitability of hotels when organizing direct online and OTA sales.