Travellers from emerging economies such as Russia and India are even more frustrated by researching travel online than those in more developed countries.
Research, sponsored by Amadeus, shows a massive 78% of Russians are frustrated by the online experience versus 47% of US travellers.
The first slide shows some of the frustrations, by country, in researching destinations online and the study also looks at pain points when booking travel products online with pricing fluctuations a key concern for most countries with the exception of Germany.
Mobile usage for travel activities is another trend addressed in the report with almost a third of European travellers not interested in using their mobile phone.
This compares with mobile device usage for travel in emerging markets where it seems the opposite is true - e.g. India, where 24% of travellers research destinations on their phone.
A research is supported by a study of British gap year travellers earlier this month which revealed how the majority would leave their mobile phone at home.
Consumers also continue to use online travel agencies as shopping engines but go direct to supplier websites to book according to the research although it seems that trend is reversing in the accommodation sector especially in the UK and India where OTAs are being used over supplier sites.
Further findings in the Empowering Inspiration: the Future of Travel Search include:
- 50% of travellers in developed countries have a particular place in mind when they begin research trip planning versus a third in emerging economies
- 40% of all respondents say they are flexible about trip dates
- 7 in 10 travellers are frustrated with booking online
- in most markets airline websites attract more bookers than OTAs with the exception of the US which is marginally weighted towards OTAs and India, where 51% book on an OTA versus 17% on an airline website.
Survey participants were also asked about future technologies to predict potential trends such as must more tailored private sales based on consumer behavioral targeting, increasingly intelligent search results and devices becoming digital personal assistants.
The research, conducted by PhoCusWright, surveyed 4,638 travellers from US, UK, Germany, India, Russia and Brazil as well as drawing information from 18 executive interviews.
NB: Image courtesy of Shutterstock