RateGain Launches The APMEA Direct Booking Friction Report 2026

RateGain Travel Technologies Limited ((BSE: 543417, NSE: RATEGAIN), a global leader in AI-powered SaaS solutions for the travel and hospitality industry, today released The Direct Booking Friction Report 2026, a first-of-its-kind audit revealing that hotels across APMEA are not losing direct revenue to poor demand or weak pricing. They are losing it to friction inside their own digital experience.

The report maps, for the first time, exactly where and why hotels across APMEA are losing direct bookings before a guest ever reaches checkout, uncovering friction across visibility, pricing, booking experience, and guest trust. The findings also reveal sharp regional differences in digital maturity, pricing discipline, and booking experience readiness across APMEA markets.

What the Audit Found

- Before the journey begins: Visibility: 42% of hotels don't appear on Page 1 for unbranded search queries. Nearly half the market is invisible to high-intent travelers before consideration even starts.

- At the comparison stage: Reputation and rates: 63% of properties list higher rates on their own website than on OTAs, actively losing guests to third-party platforms on price.

- At the booking stage: Speed and experience: 72% of hotel websites fail the 3-second load benchmark. Average mobile load times reach 4.1 seconds. When a guest does persist, they face an average of 4 clicks to confirm a reservation against a global benchmark of 3. Every additional second and every additional click is a door left open for abandonment.

- At the commitment stage: Trust and transparency: 44% of hotels withhold taxes and fees until the final payment screen, the single largest checkout abandonment trigger in the study. And 1 in 3 properties expose guests to a URL or domain disconnect between their website and booking engine, introducing security anxiety at the precise moment trust is most fragile.

"The findings of this report highlight a growing gap between where guests are actually being lost. The direct booking journey has become too fragmented across search, pricing, booking engine, and guest experience, while travelers increasingly expect a seamless experience across every touchpoint. What makes this moment urgent is that AI search is changing the rules of visibility faster than most hotels realize. Brands moving to unified platforms to fix these systematic gaps are already seeing up to 5X growth in direct revenue within 90 days, while hotels operating disconnected systems risk becoming invisible before the booking journey even begins," said Ashish Sikka, Business Head - UNO Platforms, RateGain.

The report also found significant regional variation across APMEA markets. Singapore and Thailand set the regional benchmark with average load times of 2.9 seconds and the strongest direct price parity discipline. The Maldives recorded the highest friction scores across speed, OTA bundle dominance, and pricing opacity.

Shares of Rategain Travel Technologies Limited was last trading in BSE at Rs. 746.15 as compared to the previous close of Rs. 728.95. The total number of shares traded during the day was 35782 in over 1914 trades.

The stock hit an intraday high of Rs. 765.00 and intraday low of 727.00. The net turnover during the day was Rs. 26731467.00.

Source : Equity Bulls

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RateGainTravelTechnologies INE0CLI01024 TheDirectBookingFrictionReport2026