Sheraton pips Marriott in hotels, while Booking.com overtakes Agoda

CATEGORY ANALYSIS: TRANSPORT, TRAVEL AND LEISURE

The top airlines and hotel brands have stood firm in this year's Top 1000 Brands, as powers shifted in car rental, ride-sharing and online booking site categories.

Airlines

Singapore Airlines held onto its crown as the top full service airline and there was little change in the rest of the category, besides a few minor swaps.

Air France, KLM, Finnair, Bangkok Airways, Jetstar, Malindo, Lion, Shenzhen joined the list, while Hong Kong Airlines, Delta Airlines, IndiGo, VietJet Air, SilkAir, Turkish Airlines, Saudia, United, Spicejet and Star Flyer all dropped off.

Similarly, in the budget airlines category AirAsia retained the number one slot overall and gained three spaces in India, where it is now the number three airline behind IndiGo and Air India, and one space in Hong Kong, where it is now number one.

Singapore Airlines-owned Scoot slid three spaces from 6th to 9th, while Jeju Air, China Eastern Airlines and China Southern Airlines fell two spaces to 7th, 12th and 13th respectively. Philippine airline Cebu Pacific suffered the biggest drop from 27th to 35th place. Thai Airways and Indonesia’s Lion Air gained two spaces to sit at 5th and 6th respectively.

There were quite a few drop-outs, including Air Seoul, Gulf Air, Ryanair, Silk Air, Spring Airlines, Southwest, Vanilla Air and Vueling.

Hotels

Hilton remains the top hotel brand, while Sheraton pipped Marriott to the number three slot. While Hyatt moved from 7th to 6th, the luxury arm Grand Hyatt fell from 5th to 7th, and Park Hyatt fell from 40th to 51st.

Among the biggest movers were Radisson, which gained 33 spaces (28th), and Le Meridian, which gained 28 spaces (30th). Diamond fell 14 slots (42nd) and Fairmont fell 13 slots (53rd).

Ride-sharing and car rental

There was a lot of disruption in the ride-sharing and car rental categories this year.

In the rental category, Hertz has dethroned Avis for the number one slot, while Uber jumped from 83rd to 4th slot.

At the top end there were a lot of slips, including China Auto Rental (4th to 11th), Didi Chuxing (5th to 10th), KT Kumho (9th to 14th), AJ Rent-a-Car (10th to 15th), Nippon Rentacar (11th to 17th) and Saigon Car Rental (14th to 19th).

Indian rental company Zoom Car lost 17 spaces to 25th.

Europcar gained four spaces to sit at 8th, Nissan Car Lease Philippines gained five spaces to 13th, and Lotte Rent-a-Car moved up six spaces to 9th.

Unsurprisingly, Grab has overtaken Uber in the ride-sharing category this year, after acquiring its Southeast Asia business in March 2018. (Read more analysis on ride-sharing moves here.)

Travel and accomodation booking sites

Booking.com moved up two spaces to become the number one travel or accommodation booking site in 2019, beating Agoda (2nd) and Expedia (3rd). Airbnb and Tripadvisor swapped places, at 4th and 6th respectively.

Pegi Pegi, Lastminute, Kkday, Mode Tour, Oyo, Mei Tuan, Voyagin, Cleartrip, Lvmama, Ma Feng Wo and Yi Long are among the new entrants in the category.