Social media not important for 40% of holidaymakers

The power of the online crowd has little impact on almost 40% of holidaymakers according to research released today.

The Mapping the Travel Mind - The Influence of Social Media study, released by Conrad Advertising, shows 39% of respondents are not influenced by 12 types of social media used in the study including Facebook and Twitter.

The research also shows only 8% of consumers have used Facebook for planning a holiday in the past 12 months.

This compares with 57% of respondents who say they use the social network for other purposes and even fewer, 5%, mention Twitter as having any influence on travel plans.

Tripadvisor has the greatest influence on holiday plans with 50% consulting the review site for some information while the next most relevant social media, according to 35%,  is reviews on companies' own websites.

Other key findings:

• respondents believe an easy-to-use website and brochure are more important than Facebook and Twitter when it comes to planning a holiday
• only 19% like receiving advice and recommendations from people and companies they don't know
• however, 37% say advice received from people other than friends still leads to further investigation