SimilarWeb report found out that mobile market share has grown Year over Year in most online travel sectors compared to desktop visits (mobile market share increasing by 12.75% for hotels and accommodation sites), by 12.52% for online travel agents and 5.36% for cruise booking sites.
The U.S online travel industry has seen a rising share of mobile visits Year over Year but dramatic fall in referrals, social media and display advertising as the industry shifts its digital focus for attracting customers, a new report has revealed.
Digital market intelligence firm SimilarWeb analyzed five sectors of the U.S online travel industry comparing combined mobile and desktop traffic in March 2015 and March 2016. The study analyzes the shifting sources of traffic, for thousands of sites in Accommodation and Hotels, Airlines and Airports, Online Travel agencies, Cruises and Travel Review categories.
The report findings include that:
- Mobile market share has grown Year over Year in most online travel sectors compared to desktop visits (mobile market share increasing by 12.75% for hotels and accommodation sites), by 12.52% for online travel agents and 5.36% for cruise booking sites. However airlines and travel recommendation sites both saw YoY drops in mobile usage compared to desktop (-1.53% and -4.97% respectively)
- Decrease in spend on paid search among travel companies, alongside decreases in referrals and display ads – the highest fall in display ads was in travel recommendation sites (such as Yelp, Lonely Planet and TripAdvisor), a sector which saw a 99% decrease in paid search campaigns, and 98% decrease in display ads.
- While traditionally, OTAs and travel review sites are big referrers of traffic to external sites, this sector saw a 39% decrease in referrals as they kept traffic on their own sites in a push for on-site travel bookings instead.
- Sites saw a decrease in social media traffic to their sites (hotels and accommodations -3.58% Year over Year), airlines (-9%) Cruises (-19.58%), travel recommendation sites -13.47%. However social media grew for Online Travel Agencies by 14.8%
Vicky is the co-founder of TravelDailyNews Media Network where she is the Editor-in Chief. She is also responsible for the daily operation and the financial policy. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Tourism Business Administration from the Technical University of Athens and a Master in Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Wales.
She has many years of both academic and industrial experience within the travel industry. She has written/edited numerous articles in various tourism magazines.
