What factors influence a traveler’s purchase decisions? Expedia Media Solutions and Comscore reveal insights into the traveler’s path to purchase journey.
2. METHODOLOGY
Expedia Media Solutions commissioned comScore to conduct a study on travel path to
purchase in the United Kingdom, United States and Canada
comScore blended online travel behavioral data with data collected through a custom
survey
Custom Survey Qualifications
Age 18+
Live in UK, US or Canada (each country required for each market being
analyzed)
Booked travel online within the past 6 months
Survey yielded:
United Kingdom: 817 total completes
United States: 805 total completes
Canada: 815 total completes
Fielding dates: March 14 – 23, 2016
Behavioral Data Sources
comScore PC Panel (2MM devices worldwide)
comScore Mobile Panel (20,000 devices)
comScore Multi-Platform
comScore Census Tags (>1.5 trillion events monthly)
Survey Statistical Reliability
A sample of 800 is reliable within ±3.5% points at a 95% confidence
interval
A sample of 500 is reliable within ±4.4% points at a 95% confidence
interval
3. 50 MILLION
DIGITAL UK USERS
CONSUMING
239 BILLION
DIGITAL MINUTES
EACH MONTH
3
258 MILLION
DIGITAL US USERS
CONSUMING
1.5 TRILLION
DIGITAL MINUTES
EACH MONTH
30 MILLION
DIGITAL CANADA USERS
CONSUMING
148 BILLION
DIGITAL MINUTES
EACH MONTH
Data Source: comScore Media Metrix Multi-Platform Reporting, April 2016 data, Unique Visitors & Total Minutes.
4. 806 MILLION
MINUTES
SPENT ON DIGITAL TRAVEL
CONTENT IN CANADA
18% INCREASE
YEAR OVER YEAR
4
Data Source: comScore Media Metrix Multi-Platform Media Trend Reporting, UK, US, CA, January 2015 – April
2016 data, Total Minutes.
8.7 BILLION
MINUTES
SPENT ON DIGITAL TRAVEL
CONTENT IN THE US
41% INCREASE
YEAR OVER YEAR
2.4 BILLION
MINUTES
SPENT ON DIGITAL TRAVEL
CONTENT IN THE UK
44% INCREASE
YEAR OVER YEAR
5. 5
Number of visits to travel sites
made by bookers 45 days
before booking:
121
Data Source: comScore UK, US and Canada Desktop Panel, Custom Path to Booking Visitation Analysis, Weekly Visits per User, Dec ’15 – Feb ’16. Average
Travel Site Visits per Week (Number of travel sites visited per week by the average segment member, Oct’15-Feb’16 aggregate)
ONLINE BOOKERS INCREASINGLY ENGAGE WITH
TRAVEL CONTENT IN THE WEEKS LEADING UP TO PURCHASE
-
5.0
10.0
15.0
20.0
25.0
30.0
35.0
Week 6
before
Week 5
before
Week 4
before
Week 3
before
Week 2
before
Week 1
before
Week of
booking
UK US CA
Average Travel Site Visits per Week
(Number of travel sites visited per week by the average segment member, Oct’15-Feb’16 aggregate)
140
161
Let’s peel back the layer and get a deeper look at what the overall online space looks like for travel, specifically.
Good news for all of us in the room – online travelers are spending a ton of time on our content, and it’s continuing to grow with double digit increases year over year:
2.4 billion minutes per month are spent on digital travel content in the UK up 44% vs. 2015
8.7 billion minutes per month are spent on digital travel content in the US up 41% vs. 2015
806 million minutes per month are spent on digital travel content in Canada, up 18% versus 2015
Noah: Speculate as to why
Americans have less time so make travel an even more considered purchase?
Canadians declining dollar?
So, what does the path look like? How much engagement is there among bookers and when? We looked at travel content usage by bookers across dec 2015 to feb 2016 – about 15 months of content.
Overall British bookers engaged with travel an average of 121 times over the course of their 7 week path to purchase. Let’s pause for a moment and think about that – 121 visits in 6 weeks. That is a LOT of travel content and a lot of opportunities to influence the consumer to your brand, your destination. When we break down the travel usage by weeks within the booking path, we see fairly consistent usage over weeks 6 to 1 prior to booking, with a big increase the week of booking where travelers on average visited travel content over 26 times.
Overall US bookers engaged with travel an average of 140 times over the course of their 7 week path to purchase. Looking at it weekly, we see a steady growth week over week, where travelers on average visited travel content over 23 times.
Canadian bookers engaged with travel an average of 161 times over the course of their 7 week path to purchase. They are the strongest at start of the 6 weeks and their visitation doesn’t let up. There is a spike 2 weeks before booking and it remains high to booking. In the week of booking, Canadian travelers visited travel content over 31 times.
*Call out for internal reference: Remember this is different data source – previous version was from Compete’s panel data while this version is comScore’s panel data (which is actually more stable and an industry standard)
Here is the bit.ly to download the study – please remember that this is case-sensitive