The travel data junkies at Sojern have crunched the Q2 numbers, parsing 400 million data points to come to the following quarterly conclusions for trends affecting travel marketing.
Demographics
Travelers are still predominately male, with 59 percent of travelers being males and 41% female. Variations on gender makeup for destination cities is broken down in the report, identifying opportunities for marketers to target specific demographics destination-by-destination.
Leisure travel also makes up 52% of bookings, while business is slightly less, at 48% of monitored travel.
There was also a decrease in first class travel from the first quarter, where 5% of paid travel was in first class. In 2Q, only 1% of travel was in first with the remainder booked in coach. This doesn't include complimentary upgrades or after-the-fact cabin changes. This is likely due to increased leisure travel - thus couples and groups traveling on their own dime - affecting the class booked.
Advance purchase timeframe
Top ten destinations for travel search and actual travel
The variations in these two results - those places that travelers are researching versus actually traveling to - is indicative of potential conversion opportunities.
Top ten destinations for hotel bookings
The column on the left includes the top cities for hotels actually booked, skewing heavily in cities popular with both business and leisure travelers.
The column on the right lists the most searched destinations for hotel bookings, demonstrating the amount of time that a leisure traveler spends research. Multiple sessions to comparison shop across properties means that the destinations searched do not necessarily reflect destinations booked.
Average number of people in party
Single travelers generally reflect business travel, as they are most likely to book solo passage even if traveling with a larger group, while couples and group travel is most associated with leisure travel.
Full infographic:
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The full report can be downloaded here.