“The 2016 Traveler’s Path to Purchase”, conducted by comScore, was just released by Expedia Media Solutions. The study analyzes desktop and mobile usage, content consumption, the resources users employ, and the way digital advertising affects the decisions made.
Below, we’ve pulled out a few of the best articles summarizing the study’s findings. Among other things, in the 45 days before booking a trip, Americans made 140 visits to travel sites on average. British travelers made 121 visits, and Canadians made 161. Check out the stories below for more detail.
This week also brought news from Airbnb and Google. Morgan Stanley ran a 4,000-person survery that concluded that the ‘threat’ from Airbnb is growing, with 18% of travelers now using the platform at least occasionally. Google, meanwhile, is switching to a mobile-first index for the mobile search results. This means that their index of sites will be based primarily on mobile sites. Desktop isn’t disappearing (yet), but those sites will be updated only second to mobile.
Get the full stories below:
Consumption of Digital Travel Content Sees Double-Digit Growth
A new study from Expedia Media Solutions and comScore is out. It reveals an extensive planning and booking journey for American, British and Canadian travelers during the 45-day path to purchase.
While the growth rate, number of users and time spent on digital travel content varies by country, the study found that travelers in the three countries share some behavioral similarities when it comes to travel planning. During the research and booking process, digital users are actively seeking travel content. They are also receptive to new information. Advertising influenced nearly one third of online travel bookers across the three countries.
Travel Ad Impact Greatest In Booking Stage
The largest potential for impact occurs during the initial stages of the booking path. 66% of American, 54% of British and 73% of Canadian travel bookers notice advertising then, according to a survey commissioned by Expedia Media Solutions.
As booking nears and users are exposed to more advertising, recall declines as much as 44%. This illustrates that timing is everything, and advertisers should target travelers early in the booking path in an effort to influence decisions.
Airbnb’s Threat to Hotels Is Only Getting Sharper
The industry is already experiencing trouble with lower occupancy rates and smaller profits per room, and a new survey from Morgan Stanley points to more problems in the future. The bank’s survey found that peer-to-peer travel startup Airbnb Inc. is presenting an even greater threat to hotels than expected.
“Our AlphaWise survey shows rising Airbnb adoption (now ~18 percent of travelers) with demand increasingly coming from hotels,” the team, led by Brian Nowak, writes.
Google Is Switching To A Mobile-First Index
Google has finally drawn a line in the sand by announcing their shift to focus on a better mobile experience.
At Pubcon 2016, Gary Illyes, Webmaster Trends Analyst at Google, talked about search infrastructure, ranking and spam like RankBrain (machine learning), Penguin (bad link practices), keep using the disavow tool and more.
But the biggest jaw dropping moment is the fact that Google will be switching to a mobile-first index. Yup, you read that right. They are essentially dividing the mobile and desktop indexes. This doesn’t mean desktop will disappear (yet) but it will only be updated second to mobile, the new primary index.
Expedia’s CEO Talks Long-Term Strategy
In a recent interview with Tnooz at the Phocuswright Conference, Expedia CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said that further experimentation with social was on the books.
“We think in terms of platforms and audiences. On an audience basis, social is a wave we still need to do better on. Facebook and others, and now Snapchat. These are giant audience platforms that are aggregating and are global in nature.
Our number-one aim is to reach a global audience that wants to travel. So we are very aggressively experimenting in social at a big scale.
We haven’t cracked the code on it. We really want to get from social interest to intent.”
Read the full interview to get insights into voice search, B2B tech in hospitality, and even the US presidential election.
