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.