Key 2007 E-Tourism Research Findings
From analysing participation in social media, to monitoring online customer satisfaction - researchers worldwide have been generating data to help support tourism businesses online strategy. Here is my end of year pick of recent research findings that have the potential to boost tourism business performance.
Poor user experiencing taking a toll
Online travel sales may still be growing, but according to a recent survey of more than 60,000 Internet users in the United States by Forrester Research, 9 percent fewer people booked travel online in 2007 than in 2005. It is the first time since Forrester began tracking Internet spending a decade ago that a category has lost shoppers.
As the New York Times reported: “This is a wake-up call for the industry,” said Henry Harteveldt, Forrester’s online travel analyst. “Customers are tired of spending two or three hours trying to find the airline or hotel or vacation package that meets their needs.”
The New York Times article also highlighted that PhoCusWright had also found that among US travellers with access to the Internet, the percentage who usually book travel online dropped to 62 percent at the end of last year from 68 percent in 2005, while those who say they usually arrange travel offline increased to 31 percent from 25 percent during the same period.
Read the New York Times article
So the implication for businesses? They must try harder at achieving online customer satisfaction and improving the overall ease of use of travel websites. Its not the end of the world - those customers who do book online are spending more than ever. But opportunities are being lost as a proportion of potential travellers are turning away because they are not receiving the quality of intuitive, satisfying and usable online experience they require.
Customers say it’s getting more difficult to travel shop online
On the same theme, Hotelmarketing.com reported from HEDNA’s December Conference, highlighting online challenges ahead for the travel and tourism industry. They reported Henry Harteveldt, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research describing the industry as moving backwards when it comes to meeting travellers’ expectations. His research shows that “43 per cent believe travel Websites shopping experiences have become less useful, 15 per cent feel the Internet doesn’t help them save money and 11 per cent of US online leisure hotel guests say it’s more difficult to shop for travel online now than when they started.”
He explains that while 47 per cent of travellers are happy to fill out user profile forms, more than half of those travellers say they’re not happy with the benefits received. Travel companies need to do a better job of mining the data that is compiled. Instead of presenting tailored information to guests, “we send guests into information comas, instead of helping them,” Harteveldt says.
Hotelmarketing.com reports that Harteveldt advises the travel industry to“make online booking easier, be clear instead of confusing, reflect customer preferences, do a better job providing content and make it easier for guests to reach us.”
Again the implication for online travel businesses is the same - the experience needs to get easier for customers, more satisfying and more compelling.
And it’s getting tough out there
Just one of the credit crunch anxiety reports came from VisitBritain, as reported by Travelmole:
“VisitBritain is warning the volume of inbound tourism in 2008 will be below the figure achieved last year, blaming the current economic downturn on a reluctance of overseas visitors to travel to the UK.
The first half of next year is expected to be particularly slow, while annual growth in visits will pick up in the second half of the year, according to the organisation’s latest report, which says the value of inbound tourism will remain static in real terms during 2008.”
Though the tourist board sees a host of opportunities amongst the gloom - from the handing over of the Olympic torch and the acceleration of 2012 marketing, through to the opening of Heathrow Terminal 5, they fear the credit crunch ripples out of the US could make 2008 a tough year.
“With still no end in sight to the current turmoil in the global economy the prospects for inbound tourism in 2008 are not looking as good as they should,” says the report.
Do you know how you stack up against the competition? Your customer does
PhoCusWright were as busy as ever and here’s a piece of research businesses can bare in mind, especially as competition stiffens:
The majority of travellers visit between two and five Web sites when shopping for travel online, and the number one reason for doing this is to compare prices. At the same time, nearly 20% of travellers visit six or more sites. People who visit the most sites are likely to be motivated by a desire to read reviews, research destinations, and purchase tickets to events or attractions. (Source, Cathy Schetzine, Technology Analyst for PhoCusWright - The PhoCusWright Travel 2.0 Consumer Technology Survey)
The implication for businesses? Know thy competition! Which other four websites might your potential customers be looking at? How do you stack up in terms of access to quality content and critical information (eg pricing and value factors)?
It’s not all about the US markets
comScore revealed that over 100 million Europeans accessed a travel site in March 2007. Their study of the European online travel industry found that half of the total European online population aged 15 and older visited a travel related site during March 2007 - an increase in traffic of 6 percent versus March 2006.
According to comScore, Expedia Inc. led the European travel category with 18.5 million European unique visitors aged 15 and older during March. The second most-visited European travel site was ViaMichelin, with 13.5 million European unique visitors, followed by the TUI Group’s 12.5 million European unique visitors.
comScore also revealed that Europeans who visited travel sites in March spent an average of almost 37 minutes browsing travel-related content. Within the travel category, online travel agencies garnered the most time spent, 19 minutes on average, followed by airline sites (17 minutes) and hotel sites (15 minutes).
Great content isn’t dead
PhoCusWright found that rich media trumps reviews when it comes to influencing travel bookings. Their recent Travel 2.0 Consumer Technology Survey reveals that when it comes to making travel purchasing decisions, most American travellers would rather see the options for themselves than simply act on the recommendations of others. In fact, travellers want to view the options in detail via pictures, online maps and video.
“For travel shoppers, seeing really is believing. The fact that travelers find these visual tools to be so influential suggests that online rich media, including content-rich, three-dimensional maps, will be an increasingly important part of the travel-planning process,” said Cathy Schetzina, director, research at PhoCusWright. “Traveler review sites that incorporate these visual elements are likely to be more appealing.”
So, don’t throw out great content, simply because you get greater users reviews. Video, images and maps are fantastic for search engine optimisation - now the research demonstrates that they are great for conversion too.
Not that user generated content can be ignored!
comScore and The Kelsey Group found that nearly one out of every four Internet users (24%) reported using online reviews prior to paying for a service delivered offline. Of those who consulted an online review, 41% of restaurant reviewers subsequently visited a restaurant, while 40% of hotel reviewers subsequently stayed at a hotel.
They found more than three-quarters of review users in nearly every category reported that the review had a significant influence on their purchase, with hotels ranking the highest (87%). Such is the impact of the reviews that the researchers found consumers were willing to pay at least 20% more for services receiving “excellent” or 5-star rating opposed to those receiving “good” or 4-star ratings.
And it seems that people were satisfied with the overall accuracy of reviews. The study found that 97% of those surveyed who said they made a purchase based on an online review said yes. Full article on Travelmole
This was one of several pieces of research this year that identified the fact that potential customers find user generated reviews implicitly more trustworthy, than marketing messages generated by businesses. The business implication? If you have fans, let them speak on your behalf. Their reviews and testimonials may be more influential that your own copy and messaging.
And, finally…
So, to conclude my round-up of great research findings from 2007. The research I’ve pulled together here implies an interesting mix of opportunities and challenges ahead for travel businesses for whom the online channel has become critical.
First mover advantage has long passed and the early customer convenience benefits of online have become diluted as the space has become even more crowded and fragmented. Yet, there are techniques that individual businesses can incorporate that will work to improve conversion and customer satisfaction.
Ultimately, it seems the travel industry needs to learn from what online customers are telling them - that it is all about quality of user experience and going forward into 2008, this needs to improve.
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This entry was posted on Thursday, December 27th, 2007 at 1:19 pm and is filed under Internet usage statistics, Tourism market research, Tourism statistics, Travel 2.0. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
