Travellers from Asia are booking European hotels. Is your distribution strategy ready?

Asia is one of the most important growth markets for European tourism. Tourism Economics expects travel to Europe to grow by around 16% a year from China, 10% from Japan and 7% from India between 2025 and 2030 (European Travel Commission, July 2026).

For European hotels, that presents a clear opportunity. But the booking behaviour behind that demand matters too, particularly where guests book and how often those bookings are cancelled.

We looked at more than two years of booking data from European hotels connected to our Channel Manager. The results show that demand from Asia behaves differently from most European source markets. That has direct consequences for your channel mix and rate policies.

In this blog, we share what our data shows and what it means for your distribution strategy.

What our data shows about bookings made from Asia

To understand how guests from Asia book European hotels, we analysed hundreds of thousands of reservations made in 2024, 2025 and early 2026 across all channels in our Channel Manager that share the guest’s country. Most of these bookings come through one major global OTA, so the headline figures below are based on that channel. We then checked whether the same patterns appear on other channels. They do. In our analysis, “Asia” covers guests from East, Southeast and South Asia.

China, India and Japan lead. Together, these three markets account for around half of all bookings made from Asia. The ranking was the same in both years.

Guests from Asia cancel about twice as often. On the major OTA, more than half of all bookings made from Asia were cancelled (53–56%), compared with 28–29% for guests from other markets. The gap was consistent across both years and in early 2026. Cancellation rates are lower on other channels, but the gap remains: there, guests from Asia cancelled two to three times as often as other guests.

Guests from Asia book earlier in the year. Around 40–42% of bookings made from Asia were made between April and July, compared with 35% for other markets. We saw the same pattern on other channels. October to December was quieter than average.

Why cancellation rates differ so much

The cancellation gap isn’t the same across Asia. It follows a clear pattern. Guests from markets that need a Schengen visa cancelled around 60% of their bookings in 2024 and 2025. Guests from visa-exempt markets cancelled around 40%.

Japanese guests, for example, cancelled around a third of their bookings. For guests from India, it was over 60%. For Indonesia, it was over 70%. The pattern isn’t perfect, but it held again in early 2026, even though cancellation rates were lower overall.

A likely factor is the visa process itself. Schengen visa applications usually require proof of accommodation. Travellers often book a refundable room to support the application, then cancel if the visa is delayed or refused, or once their plans change. Our data can’t prove that the visa process is the cause, but the difference between visa-required and visa-exempt markets is consistent across the periods we analysed.

For your hotel, this doesn’t make demand from Asia less valuable. It means you need to plan for how it behaves.

Where guests from Asia book makes a difference

On Agoda, around 40% of guests at our hotels came from Asia. On the major global OTA, it was around 3%. In 2024 and 2025, guests from Asia who booked through Agoda also cancelled far less: around a third of their bookings, compared with more than half on the major OTA. Cancellation rates on Agoda are lower for all guests, so part of this reflects how the channel works. It’s another reason to look at channel mix in the context of the markets you want to reach.

What this means for your distribution strategy

Start with your own data. Which markets in Asia are already generating bookings for your hotel? How do their cancellation rates compare with your other markets? And are you measuring them on bookings, or on bookings that went ahead?

This can help identify which markets may be worth exploring further across your wider commercial and marketing activity.

Then look at the practical levers:

• Rate plans and policies. Offering prepaid or non-refundable rates alongside flexible ones gives guests a choice and protects your revenue. Review cancellation deadlines per channel and rate plan.
• Forecasting. Track pickup net of cancellations by source market. A strong booking month from a high-cancellation market may look very different a few weeks later.
• Timing. Booking volume from guests from Asia is highest in spring and early summer. Make sure your rates, availability and content are live on the channels they use well before that window opens.
• Channel reach. Reach varies sharply by source market. An OTA that drives strong volume from Germany may barely register with travellers in Vietnam or India. Check whether you’re connected to the channels your target markets actually use.
• Net contribution. Compare channels on what they actually deliver after cancellations, length of stay, commission and payment costs, not on booking volume or ADR alone.

Keep track of where your rates appear

If you're adding channels in new markets, it's important to know where your rates are being distributed. Rates intended for tour operators or packages can sometimes surface as standalone room rates on OTAs or metasearch, occasionally below your own website price. This tends to happen in markets you aren’t watching closely.

A few habits help:

• Check which of your contracts allow onward distribution, and to whom.
• Look at your rates as travellers in your target markets see them, not only in your home market.
• Keep wholesale and net rates on separate rate plans, so you can trace where a rate came from.

A channel manager makes this easier. It controls which rate plans and availability go to each channel, so you can expand with confidence and quickly close or adjust a rate if something looks off.

Make your direct channel work for international guests

OTAs are often how international guests first find your hotel. For long-haul travellers booking an unfamiliar property abroad, a platform they already know and trust can make that first booking feel lower risk.

Your direct channel can then play an important role in bringing those guests back directly. For international guests, that takes more than a competitive rate. Can they read your website in their language? Does your booking engine show prices in their currency? Can they pay the way they’re used to paying at home?

Payment is often where international direct bookings stall. With Smart Payments, you can offer multi-currency pricing and accept payment methods guests know from home. Secure prepayment also helps you protect revenue on rate plans where cancellations are more likely.

Is your connectivity ready for what’s next?

As demand changes, your distribution setup needs to give you room to respond. When reviewing your channel mix, look at whether you can access the channels that matter in your target markets, manage the right rate plans and policies for each, and add new connections when there’s an opportunity.

With our PMS-independent Channel Manager and more than 160 OTA, PMS and GDS connections, we help hotels shape their distribution around the markets and guests they want to reach.

Ready to explore what’s possible with your hotel’s distribution?

Discover how the Smarthotel / Net Affinity Channel Manager helps you manage your distribution channels, keep your systems connected and make the most of new demand opportunities.

Explore our Channel Manager →

About the data: Our findings are based on anonymised reservations made in 2024, 2025 and early 2026 at European hotels connected to our Channel Manager, across all channels that share the guest’s country. Headline figures are from a major global OTA; findings were checked against other channels, including Agoda. The analysis uses the month in which the booking was made. “Asia” covers guests from East, Southeast and South Asia. Growth forecasts are from Tourism Economics, published in the European Travel Commission’s European Tourism: Trends & Prospects report for Q2 2026.