New Study Finds British Travellers Spend 2.4 Billion Minutes Engaging with Travel Content

The purchase path of travellers today is anything but linear. Multi-device usage and its impact on content consumption and booking behavior continues to evolve, providing travellers with more options than ever before – leading to an extensive research and booking path. Today at Phocuswright Europe, I revealed the findings of our new British Traveller’s Path to Purchase study to help marketers understand the complex booking journey and navigate the growing number of touchpoints that influence destination and purchase decisions.

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The research, which we commissioned with comScore, examined how consumers in the UK can be influenced as they plan and purchase travel during the 45-day period leading up to online booking. Here are a few key takeaways:

More consumers are engaging with travel content on mobile devices than desktops, though in general, people are moving more fluidly across devices

  • Nearly half of users engage with travel content on multiple devices, compared to 28 percent of mobile-only users and 21 percent of desktop-only users

Travel continues to be a considered and time consuming purchase, and the average British online travel booker visited travel sites more than 121 times during the 45-day path to purchase

  • By the end of the booking path, average visits per booker increased by more than 200 percent, resulting in close to daily visits to travel sites, on average

Destination decisions are influenced by many factors, and nearly 55 percent of online travel bookers in the UK started the research process with multiple destinations in mind

  • OTAs and search engines were the most common initial online resources when deciding on a destination, while recommendations from family and friends were the most common offline resource

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The travel advertising marketplace is crowded, but full of opportunity – especially given that those with a propensity to book travel are five times more likely to see travel advertising than non-bookers

  • Nearly a third of travellers who were considering multiple destinations were influenced by advertising

For more findings and insights, download the full study {{cta(’12d4bf5a-b28d-4d60-87f7-3b5daf02cc8b’)}}

Our press release can also be found here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160512005128/en/British-Travellers-Spend-2.4-Billion-Minutes-Engaging.

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Wendy Olson Killion

Senior Vice President, Expedia Group Media Solutions

Wendy Olson Killion is senior vice president of Expedia Group Media Solutions, the travel advertising platform of Expedia Group, and leads the business including product, engineering, strategy, operations, and partner-facing teams. Prior to this role, she was vice president of business development, where she oversaw the global teams responsible for managing advertising partner relationships and campaigns across the portfolio of Expedia Group travel brands. She previously directed global product development and marketing for the entire suite of advertising products, including display, email, social and mobile solutions. Before joining Expedia Group, Wendy led product management of the emerging channels and brands at Cars.com, including their mobile offerings. Wendy also previously spent five years at J.D. Power and Associates where she managed a suite of publications aimed at defining automotive marketing online, and co-founded the Automotive Marketing Roundtable conference. Wendy serves on the HSMAI Americas board and on the VisitBritain Tourism Advisory Council board. She is a graduate of the University of Puget Sound and lives in Washington state with her family.

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