ECJ EUROPEAN Cleaning Journal

Global travellers intending to book holiday accommodation in the wake of the Coronavirus pandemic consider hygiene to be more important than price or location. That's according to a new survey by Skyscanner.

The survey, which was aiming to find out how planning a holiday will evolve, was conducted among 2,300 travellers from the UK, the US, Australia, South Korea, and Singapore visiting Skyscanner's site from June 12-22.

When it comes to booking a property in the future, 55 per cent of Skyscanner users score sanitation and hygiene practices as "extremely important", compared to price (48 per cent) and location (45 per cent). Reward and loyalty programmes ranked lowest (11 per cent), after brand reputation (21 per cent) and star rating (20 per cent).

This shift in traveller preference can be attributed to the Coronavirus pandemic, with travellers saying hygiene practices (73 per cent) and flexible cancellation policies (61 per cent) have become "more important than before".

As a result Skyscanner has introduced cleanliness ratings on most accommodation listed on its site. These ratings are retrieved from TripAdvisor's reviews in real-time.