Nucleus has released the results of its latest web browsing study showing significant gains in traffic from mobile devices and iPads in particular.
The research from the web design specialist, which is in its fourth wave, shows browsing of travel websites via mobile device now accounts for just over 27% of traffic, an increase of almost a third on the previous period six months ago.
Browsing from Apple devices continues to dominate taking more than 88% of total mobile traffic while iPad alone accounts for almost 62% of all mobile browsing with its position boosted by the launch of the iPad mini in recent months.
Luxury websites show the highest volumes of traffic coming from mobile devices at more than 30% on average.
Interestingly, one luxury hotel website which has the oldest demographic also saw the second highest mobile penetration.
Although iOS devices dominate on this site with 86% of all mobile traffic, browsing from Android devices accounts for 11.5% - a higher than average figure.
Nucleus chief executive Peter Matthews says travel companies now need to decide whether to go for a single website that responds to all devices or separate smartphone websites.
He adds that companies should also factor smart televisions into their strategy.
Further findings:
- When the first wave of research was carried out in June 2011 average mobile traffic stood at 10.2%, rising to 20.5% a year later and 27.1% in January 2013
- 8 out of 10 websites in the current study show mobile traffic levels of 25%
- traffic from iPhone devices has seen a decline of 14%
- travel sites are on track for more than 50% mobile traffic by the end of 2014
The study looks at 10 UK and international websites in January 2013 with total unique visitors of 1.7m.