Every March, travel and tourism brands from across the globe descend on Berlin, Germany for ITB, the world’s leading travel trade show. Our team was there this year, taking more than one million combined steps across the huge conference venue to meet with our global marketing partners and enjoy the expansive show floor.
The team joined representatives from other groups across the Expedia group at our stand, located in the travel technology hall, which proved to be as busy as expected.
This year we also had an opportunity to host an Insights Summit for the first time at ITB, with marketers from across the globe joining us at the Funkturm Lounge, right in the heart of the Messe Berlin. During the hour-long session, we shared our latest custom study findings and discussed how our partners could better understand travel customers from around the globe.
Regular visitors to our blog will probably have seen our recent study with Northstar Research on travel trends across the globe. We have previously explored regional views of this data, looking at Europe, North America and Asia Pacific, and at the Insights Summit we had a chance to discuss this data from a global perspective.
Here are a few key insights – make sure to download the full study.
- Trip Types: Travelers from different countries have varying trip preferences and influences that impact their purchases. For example, relaxing trips were favored by Chinese and Canadian travelers, whereas German and French travelers showed a strong preference for visiting family whilst on vacation.
- Advertising Influences: Approximately half of all travelers claim ads with appealing deals can be influential, with U.S. and Canadian travelers being the most influenced by deals. Chinese travelers on the other hand are most strongly influenced by appealing imagery in ads.
- Budget and Spend: Japanese travelers allocated more than a third of their budget to hotels, significantly more than any other line item. Australian and Canadian travelers spent the most proportion on flights, at nearly a quarter of their budget. Chinese travelers allocated the most to shopping and attractions/tours.
The Insights Summit was also an opportunity to host a panel discussion around marketing, data and technology. A line-up of experts including Accor Hotels, Tourism Ireland and Deutsche Bahn, along with Expedia Media Solutions’ own marketing masterminds, covered a wide range of topics during the panel discussion. These included how to utilise customer data and behavioral insights, the impact of younger generations on marketing and how emerging technologies help travel marketers engage with customers.
During ITB we also had the pleasure of presenting our annual Partner Awards to this year’s winners from the EMEA region. The awards celebrate the very best creativity and achievement in travel marketing from the last 12 months, honoring some of the most innovative and high performing campaigns.
On day two of ITB, Phocuswright Inc. Founder, Philip C. Wolf hosted a one-on-one interview with our very own President & CEO, Mark Okerstrom. The conversation spanned his new role within the business, global expansion, new technologies, competitive challenges in the market, and emerging trends along with some personal insights on the future.
To stay up to date on our latest news and research, subscribe to our blog via the form above, and follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn. We hope to see you next year back in Berlin for ITB 2019!
