(Dive Travel Business News - April 23, 2010) -- PhoCusWright's Social Media in Travel: Traffic & Activity is the market research firm's latest study of the travel market published in April 2010. The study provides a detailed examination of the role of online social media in travel. The study outlines the impact of social media on major online travel categories, and the implications for travel companies that wish to tap the potential of this highly dynamic form of traveler behavior.
"We're in a really interesting period of upheaval and chaos within the interface between travel suppliers and travelers," said Douglas Quinby, senior director of research at PhoCusWright and author of that group's new study.
"We are now in a world where the traveler can not only choose from virtually unlimited websites but can also interact with and source content from other travelers on their networks. They can interact with suppliers and intermediaries through entirely new ways: through their iPhones and, as of today, through iPads."
These new touch points, he said, "are beckoning fundamental change in how suppliers get the word out and how travelers are going to be making decisions about where they are going and where they are going to spend their money."
The social Web has shifted the online experience from searching and consuming, to creating, connecting and exchanging. Yesterday's more passive consumers and Web surfers are today's content generators, collaborators and commentators. This fundamental change in how consumers are using the Web is having an enormous impact on online travel. Traveler reviews, photos, trip planning and sharing, and blogging are all influencing how travelers connect to and interact with suppliers, products and services.
The PhoCusWright report underscores how quickly things can change and consolidate. For example, one of the biggest challenges companies face when navigating new-age marketing channels is anticipating how long technologies and social-media sites will stay relevant. It wasn't that long ago, after all, that MySpace was the social media site. It was soon overshadowed by Facebook, but as older generations flock to Facebook, the under-30 crowd is seeking alternatives.
Another case in point - the change in online reviews. TripAdvisor, one of the sites at the forefront of the social media revolution in the travel space, still dominates. But the report reveals that online travel agencies have become the largest producer of online reviews.
Some of the key findings of the report:
Influence and Size
Social media use among travelers continues to grow faster than the travel industry itself. Unique monthly visitors to social travel sites rose 34% between the first half of 2008 and the last half of 2009, to 15.9 million. This represents year-over-year growth of more than 30% in the first half of 2009 and 45% in the second half of 2009. By comparison, U.S. travel gross bookings declined 16% in 2009.
- Use of social networks for travel-related purposes is significant: 30% of travelers who use social networks report soliciting trip-planning advice from their networks. However, use of social networks to source specific travel information and follow specific travel companies or brands is far less common. Only 16% of travelers who participate in a social network say they have used it to source information while traveling, and just 7% report following or friending a travel company on a social network or Twitter.
- Social network use is a significant part of travel shopping behavior. The percentage of visitors to hotel websites, airline websites and online travel agencies who have also visited sites in the social travel category increased steadily in 2009, and more than eight in 10 OTA and hotel website visitors also visited social networks in the same month in 2009.
- The online social travel arena is dominated by traveler review sites, which accounted for more than three-quarters of all unique visitor traffic to the total social travel category from 2008 through 2009. Average monthly unique visitors to traveler review sites grew from nearly 9 million in the first half of 2008 to more than 13.1 million in the second half of 2009. Each of the other social travel subcategories (social travel guides and travel blogs) generate less than one-quarter of the traffic to traveler review sites.
- Nearly half of all online travelers ages 35 to 64 have participated in a social network, as have 29% of seniors.
Conversion
Within the social travel category, traveler review sites generate the vast majority of immediate referrals to hotel sites, OTAs and airline sites; however, the conversion rates differ. Though OTAs attract the most referrals, they convert significantly less than do referrals to hotels and airlines.
- OTA shoppers who visit hotel review pages in OTAs are twice as likely to convert. On average, 8% of unique visitors to OTAs purchased travel from an OTA in 2008 and 2009, but 15% and 16% of all unique visitors to OTA hotel review pages purchased travel from an OTA in 2008 and 2009.
- Immediate referrals from general social networks, primarily Facebook, have surged in 2009 along with the popularity of the online social network. While more immediate referrals came from MySpace to OTAs and hotels in the first half of 2008, Facebook delivered 11 times more referrals than MySpace in December 2009.
- Conversion rates on immediate referrals from Facebook far exceeded those from traveler review sites to both hotels and OTAs. The conversion rate on Facebook referrals to hotel suppliers was consistently above 6% for most of 2009, higher than conversion rates on all referrals and even from Google.
The ability to influence and engage with the travelers while they are on their trip is becoming very powerful. Travelers need personal service in addition to engagement before the trip. They need to be tweeted then treated well. As social media evolves, headquarter-based loyalty programs are being implimented personally at the local level with a blending of the property doing a personal outreach, an email, a phone call or a short note. It may not sound like a big deal ... but it is, especially to obtain and retain a repeat customer.
The report is available at PhoCusWright. [9]