This is the 2nd post in a 5-part series by Quirk’s Head of Search – Suzan Gray. Find the previous article here.
In this post I look at how Leisure and Affluent travellers use the Internet to make their travel arrangements.
The good news is that the overall personal travel outlook is strong. In this segment - 82% of these travellers will take the same or more personal trips in 2009 compared to last year. This is especially the case for affluent travellers – where that figure is 86%.
Booking Behaviour Changes for Personal Travellers
Personal travellers will adjust their booking behaviour in 2009.
- 57% will spend more time shopping and researching before booking their travel.
- Over 40% will take a “wait & see” approach when booking travel in advance.
- Over 40% will only travel if they find a good deal.
- Almost 50% will take more trips of a shorter nature (like weekends away) than before.
TIP: Savvy search marketers who are targeting personal travellers will take the above factors into account and modify their online offerings in 2009. They will need to service this private traveller behaviour change towards better deals, more shorter trips and more information.
Travel Packages And Reward Programmes
About 1/3 of personal and affluent travellers will book a package instead of booking their accommodation, travel and activities separately.
Only 58% of Personal travellers are members of a travel rewards program. If they are, they are more than twice as likely to be members of flight and accommodation reward systems than car hire rewards programmes.
Mobile Access Less Important Than for Business Travellers
Leisure travellers are less likely to access information from their mobile device. Only 8% of personal travellers (and 16% of affluent travellers) said they would access information from their mobile device.
TIP: Personal travellers are less likely to be part of rewards programmes or use mobile sites to access information.
Although they use the Internet almost as much as business travellers to plan their travels, they are also twice as likely as business travellers to use their friends and family as sources for travel information.
Take that into account when deciding what online touch points to use when influencing a personal traveller in their purchase cycle. The use of Social Media spaces, where people share “trusted” personal travel opinions, may be a more suitable channel to influence personal travellers.
Planning the trip : Internet #1 Planning Resource
Both Personal (82%) and business travellers (76%) are using the Internet as their number one planning resource for travel.
Surprisingly, affluent travellers use the Internet most (at 86%) when planning travel and the same amount plan to continue to use it in the future, though they plan to use other sources less.
TIP: Luxury Travel offerings appealing to the Affluent traveller need to cater to this trend and offer suitable materials and offerings online to satisfy this type of traveller.
The Internet Is Used More than Any Other Source Throughout the Purchase Cycle
The Internet is primarily used to gather information and help make decisions. However, about 1/3 of business and personal travellers are likely to be prompted by the Internet in some way to book their travels.
TIP: The Internet prompts more bookings than TV, word-of-mouth or any other top source of information.
Do not underestimate the power of the Internet to help influence a travel decision and prompt a traveller to book. Consider whether you are reaching your travelling clients in the right channels, with the right message.
Optimise your conversion paths on your site and do conversion testing to determine which factors prompt a traveller to book.
User Reviews and Purchase Decisions
User reviews are quite prevalent in the travel decision cycle and are becoming increasingly important to travellers.
- 41% of personal travellers and 50% of business travellers are influenced by reviews.
- Both business and personal travellers prefer reviews from “people like them” over experts – although in both groups more than 50% still trusted the content from experts.
- Travellers (especially business travelers) are increasingly more comfortable reading, posting and commenting on reviews.
TIP: Encourage travellers who use your services to do user reviews online. Find inventive ways to reward them if they do an honest review online.
Are you providing valuable insights about your services that your competitors aren’t? Do you have a place for people to post their personal experiences?
Do not totally write off reviews from experts though. Although they are not as trusted as user-generated content – they still influence travellers – especially business travellers.
Search Engines Are Widely Used In Trip Planning
3 out of 4 travellers say that search engines are extremely or very useful in planning their trips.
- Search engines are more widely used than online travel agencies (OTA’s) and travel aggregators.
- Business travellers use search engines slightly more than personal travellers, especially for flight and accommodation information.
- Search engine users are also more likely to spend time shopping around for a good deal because of the state of the economy.
TIP: Are you investing the right amount of time & energy in your online strategy and search engine presence?
Do you cover all the areas where people are searching for information? Are you making sure you are in front of searchers when they are doing their research; and influencing them online at key decision points?
In Summary
- Online personal and affluent travellers are still showing strong signs in 2009;
- The Internet is used more than any other resource in planning a trip. It is significant in both providing information and prompting travellers to book.
- User generated content (reviews) influence both personal and business travellers.
- Search engines factor more strongly in travel planning than OTA’s and aggregators.
- Search engine users are more likely to shop around for good deals.
Data Source: The statistics in this post were obtained from “The Travellers Road to Decision”. OTXResearch survey conducted on behalf of Google in April/May 2009.
Part 1: Business travellers
How they gather online information and make travel decisions.
Part 2: Leisure and Affluent travellers
How they gather online information and make travel decisions.
Part 3: The Brand Value of Search for the Travel industry
Part 4: Online Video and Travel Search
Part 5: How Search is performing for the Travel industry so far in 2009
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Whether its a technology barrier can be discussed, but with the Seacom line allowing for better connectivity packages hopefully we will see more BnB's online and updated
Posted by Aslam Levy on 2009/09/01