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New research from eMarketer shows that people are still searching online for travel, in many cases above all else, in spite of the credit crunch.
According to a recent study, of the nearly seven million Spaniards who’ve shopped online in 2008, nearly two-thirds used their time online to search for travel and accommodations. Second-most searched for were tickets to movies, theatres, and concerts, but this had significantly less search at only 36 percent.
Another study shows that in the US, the Hispanic population is beginning to go online in big numbers: over 40 percent of US Hispanics shopped online this year. And travel was the top category they researched. As Hispanics look set to represent 1/6 of the US population by 2010, this is not a category to be overlooked, and they continue to be underserved by Spanish-language sites.
In the US as a whole, online buyers continue to be “active but practical,” with 4/10 online buyers having made an online travel purchase within the past six months. Indeed, travel was the top category in online purchases and transactions among US adult online buyers.
“It makes sense that internationally, people would continue to research and make their travel bookings online,” says Greig Holbrook, MD of www.obanmultilingual.com. “As travel sites realise the need to cater to individual customer needs and cultural tastes worldwide, international travellers are starting to feel more and more at ease making travel transactions online.”
But Greig stresses that for this type of confidence to continue and grow, more needs to be done to cater to the culturally-distinct preferences that visitors have for travel sites. “Looking at the above numbers,” says Greig, “a savvy travel site would optimise in Spanish to drive some of the Spanish and US Hispanic traffic to their site.”
Theodore is the Co-Founder and Managing Editor of TravelDailyNews Media Network; his responsibilities include business development and planning for TravelDailyNews long-term opportunities.
