Expedia – The Path to Purchase: uncovering how travellers plan and book online
A 23-page report that aims to explore the way potential visitors are inspired, how they research and how they book trips in the online world. This is done in partnership with Luth Research courtesy of a digital study that tracked traveller behaviour in the 45 days prior to booking and consumer research into what had motivated and influenced the consumer, with the sample covering those in Australia, Canada, France, Japan, Mexico, the UK and USA. In total 5,713 respondents took the survey, all of whom had booked travel in the past six months.
Key insights emerging include:
- On average consumers view 141 pages of travel content online in the 45 days prior to making a booking with viewing peaking at 25 pages on the day of purchase
- Four-in-five of those who booked a trip had visited an OTA page at some point prior to making a booking
- In terms of time the average amount spent viewing travel content online in the 45 days before making a booking stood at 303 minutes
- The average lag between a consumer starting to think about a trip and actually making a booking was 71 days with 33 days for the inspiration phase and 38 days for the research and planning stage
- The average lag between booking and taking the trip was 73 days
- Social media is a key source of inspiration in the early days of thinking about a trip but destination sites, search engines and meta travel sites grow in importance as research progresses
- In the early part of the inspiration phase conversations with family was a key source
- In a number of markets consumers were undecided on their destination but had a sense of the type of trip they were seeking
- 51% of those surveyed had booked their most recent trip using an OTA
The report concludes with suggested actions that can be taken based on the insights uncovered in the study.