Over half of visitors to travel sites now using mobile
Mobile is now the primary means with which visitors interact with travel sites, according to new research from EyeforTravel and Jumpshot
More than half of visitors to travel websites are now using mobile devices in Brazil, India, the UK and the US reports EyeforTravel's Understanding the Travel Consumer's Path to Purchase white paper. This rises to two thirds of consumers in India, where smartphones are more important for accessing the internet.
In Brazil and the US 54% of daily visitors to travel sites used mobile devices, with a slightly higher 57% doing so in the UK. The data was captured using clickstream data from white paper partner Jumpshot's panel of more than 100 million consumers, which tracked visitors across major travel sites in each country.
However, the paper notes that travel brands cannot increase focus on one channel at the expense of another, as consumers are largely adopting a multichannel approach to researching and then purchasing travel, with different devices more important at different stages of the process. Data presented in the paper shows that consumers frequently cross over from primarily using mobile devices to research their travel options, to desktops and laptops in the purchase phase. Desktop conversion rates are also considerably higher than for mobile in all the countries studied, further demonstrating that, for the time being, desktops and laptops remain the primary booking devices, if not the main drivers for research.
Alex Hadwick, Head of Research at EyeforTravel emphasised that "travel brands should be getting ready for a mobile-led future if they have not already done so. The demographics we have studied in this paper are clear, with younger generations clearly more inclined to use mobile devices compared to older generations. Although baby boomers are still the generation with the greatest disposable income, millennials are now the largest generation demographically in the West and alongside the populations in developing economies, which are also younger and more mobile-focused, they will change the way travel is viewed and consumed."
EyeforTravel and Jumpshot tracked more than a quarter of a million travel purchasers across five countries through clickstream data and consumer surveys to build a picture of the path to purchase. The white paper details the how, where and why of the decisions people make before they book, and identifies what travel brands should be doing to capture market share.
To download the complete white paper and read all the research click here.
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