Sojern's latest European travel trends report highlights some material differences in how travellers in the major European markets plan their trips.
Take "lead-in" time - an increasingly relevant statistic in an era when marketing tech allows travel firms to target travellers with ads from their first travel intent signal. A longer lead-in time presumably means more opportunities for the tech firms to place adverts for supplier and destination clients.
Sojern found that travellers in the UK spend the longest time planning a trip at 86 days; Germans spend 80 days; travellers from France only 67 days. The European average comes in at 73 days.
It has produced a graphic to compare lead-in times across Europe, and, appropriately, it is the colder northern European countries which dominate the heatmap.
"Trip duration" is another stat which is gaining relevance. Again looking at the three major markets, Brits appear wedded to the seven day break, Germans average 8.6 days with the French preferring 7.8 days away
Tours and activities businesses or in-destination apps might take note that selling to Germans stands a better chance of success than selling to Brits, in theory at least, because they have an extra day-and-a-half of time to fill.
The consumer travel pages in Europe are filled with tales of woe for Egypt and Turkey in particular, with both having suffered a drop in visitor numbers from what Sojern describes as political and economic unrest. Intent signals for these two destinations are down by 18% and 24% respectively.
But, as with many of these trend reports which come out of the ad-tech industry, top-line findings can oversimplify a very complicated traveller landscape. Business or leisure travel? How long into the planning cycle do people book and what travel products are they still in the market for a month or a week before departure? Domestic and overseas travel patterns?
Sojern's data is based on more than one billion travel intent signals and does provide a valid bigger picture perspective. But one wonders how relevant the bigger picture is when we are all segments of one.
NB Image by Tupungato/BigStock