No longer can the Internet be viewed just as an add-on to marketing efforts - it is now an integral, critical part of travel distribution.
That was the view expressed by Diane Clarkson, Travel Industry Analysts at Jupiter Research and Bill Tancer, god of all things data at Hitwise, in this evening’s excellent webinar: Travel 2.0 Today, The Economy and the Evolving Travel Landscape.
More critically, Hitwise have found (through their clickstream analysis of internet users as they move from site to site) that traffic to the travel category of websites is actually increasing as people tighten their belts.
There has been no drop in travel website visits as fuel prices increase. People are instead researching their travel decisions more intensively online and are shifting to the online channel as they become more price sensitive.
Internet and online travel becomes more important in tough economic times.
Bill Tancer, Hitwise
Jupiter Research’s data backs this up. Their US Online Travel Consumer Survey from May ‘08 suggest that the next 12 months could see a sharp decline in travel frequency - with 39% of occasional leisure travellers and 43% of occaisional business travellers suggesting that they are planing fewer trips in the coming year. But the impact, Diane explains, is that “the Internet will increasingly become a tool as people research more intensely”.
The business implications of that are immense - while you may have cruised by on a sub-par website in good times, as things toughen up in the sector, people are looking at more websites and so it is critical you can attract and retain visitors on yours.
Bill and Diane’s webinar covered three key topics:
- The impact on travel of the economic downturn
- The impact of user generated content on travel brands and travel consumers
- The potential for travel and social network sites.
They kindly gave permission for their content to be blogged openly, which is much appreciated as it is not always the case with such industry analyst briefings. When the webinar is available online, I will add the link as its really worth a listen. In the meantime here are a few of the conclusions from their respective research efforts that really tingled some brain cells for me:
1. User generated content is used by 40% of online travel researchers
Yup, 40%. Not hardly anyone, or a bunch of geeks, or a few back packing students - but 4 out of 10 of the people researching travel. Jupiter’s US Online Travel Consumer Survey from May ‘08 found that for this 40% using user generated content, ratings were the most popular (used by 58%), followed by reviews and recommendations (49%). Next came user generated photo content (18%) and friend’s social networking websites (18%). Other travellers blogs we consulted by 12% and user generated video by 5%.
The impacts of this? Diane cited the importance of using this content regularly and systematically as a source of competitor intelligence. And as the next point will illustrate, she also highlighted the importance for the contribution of travellers to be included as part of brand strategy. Why? Because user generated content is highly trusted.
2. User generated content is nearly twice as influential as brand to accommodation researchers
User generated content is far more influential than brand or the recommendations of friends and family
After price and location, for those using ugc, reviews/ratings from other travellers was the major influence in the decision making process. 36% named it as an influential factor in their decision, compared to 21% citing brand/reputation and 14% citing that old chestnut of family/friend recommendation. (Source Jupiter as above).
Hitwise’s clickstream data shows that visits to travel user generated content have increased 40% in the year since June 2007. They also reveal (perhaps no surprises) that it is TripAdivsor that is the heavyweight, accounting for more than 75% of the Travel UGC and 2.0 market share. (IgoUgo pales into second at 9.5% and WAYN at 8.4%). Bill made the point that while standalone Travel UGC accounts for only a small fraction of travel visits online (2%), its reach and impact is in fact much wider as people engage in user generated content on traditional travel websites.
3.The Travel 2.0 heavyweights are in the mainstream research to purchase mix
With a graph to die for, Bill combined the flow of clicks from travel site to travel site, with market share of those sites. From this network map, he isolated those sites that are driving traffic to the big OTAs such as Expedia, Orbitz and Travelocity.
And a few Travel 2.0 players are having a big impact - TripAdvisor and the metasearch site Kayak and Sidestep. Metasearch, sites that search for price across muliple agency and supplier sites, before sending the search off to another site to book, are faring particularly well in these price sensitive times. Two years ago they were only used by the highly tech savvy, whereas now they are entering the mainstream as people research more intensively for the best prices.
However, what Bill’s uber-graph also shows is that outside these heavyweights, the smaller Travel 2.0 sites (from WAYN to WikiTravel) are very insular, with little cross flow of traffic and are currently outside the mainstream travel research traffic flow.
4. The social networking sites are not impacting as a travel planning resource yet
Jupiter (same source as above) found that only 8% of those online travellers who are using social networking sites do so for travel planning. 56% do not use social networks in any capacity whatsoever that relates to travel. The most common travel related uses come in the form of communication, with 23% looking at friends travel photos or videos, 22% keeping in touch while away and 19% posting photos.
Diane contrasted the high level of trust that people have in stranger generated reviews, which comes from critical mass. People can sift many reviews looking for patterns and things that resonate with them. In contrast, social networks have much lower critical mass.
Hitwise’s data has not seen significant increases in traffic being referred to travel sites from social network sites - Bill suggested that where it is appearing, it is potentially being caused by people that use their social networking site as their homepage.
And different segments and demographic profiles of travel researchers behave in different ways. The 55+ age group are more likely to use newspapers and magazines to find a new travel site that they haven;t used before, whereas younger users are more likely to use meta search. Website visitors, like travellers, can never be thought of as a single homogeneous mass.
So, thanks again to Hitwise and Jupiter Research for a great webinar and for allowing us bloggers to share their findings with the wider industry. I hope I’ve communicated some of the potential power of their data with this short round up.
This entry was posted on Thursday, June 12th, 2008 at 9:53 pm and is filed under Data, Future trends, Internet usage statistics, Online customer behaviour, 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.
