Some interesting figures and an update on travel tech trends shared at an OpenJaw customer conference in Dublin last week.
The stats shared by Henry Harteveldt of Atmosphere Research Group show more travellers from China and Brazil own tablet devices.
Air passengers from the UK, US, Brazil and China were surveyed in the second quarter of 2012 to reveal that while in the US 35% own a tablet, it's 50% of travellers in Brazil and 53% in China.
Stats for mobile ownership among travellers show 78% of travellers in Brazil and 89% in China have a smartphone compared with around 66% for UK and US travellers.
Across all four countries travellers are now spending more time browsing for personal use than watching the television and are interested in carrying out/buying a range of 'low risk' items including restaurant reservations and booking sightseeing tours via mobile.
Harteveldt used the stats to emphasis the big three travel tech trends that online retailers need to take notice of - mobile, consumer control and big data.
"Travellers are used to having things made their way and want more control over how they shop and how they pay. They want things created based on their interests and their budget and travel sellers are not very good at doing this yet."
The research shows travellers don't think retailers are making the best use of technology to personalise offers to them or improve the overall experience.
Harteveldt says:
"The consumer is seeing some sectors that seem to be good at this and asking why travel companies can't be better and when you factor in growing use of semantic and visual web, it shows travel companies need to do a better job with big data."
NB: Tablets image via Shutterstock