The web was supposed to make booking travel easier, faster and more accessible - but the reality is somewhat different, according to research.
A study from Yieldify, a specialist in customer journey optimization, reveals that almost 42% of consumers are taking longer to book travel than five years ago.
The ‘How We Book Now’ report says there are two main drivers for the increase, with almost half of consumers carrying “multiple purchase journeys” for each trip as almost half are booking each element separately.
And, the increased volume of online travel sites has led to “analysis paralysis” with half of consumers saying they now visit more or many more sites than five years ago.
The findings are similar to research carried out by Google and Phocuswright in 2017 with 55% of travelers saying they have to seek out too many sources of travel information before deciding.
The Yieldify study shows that almost 80% of consumers say they visit multiple sites to just decide where they want to go.
When it comes to making the booking, 46% of consumers say they are influenced by previous experience, 41% say reviews and 39% say price.
Price still has the edge for attracting consumers to a travel site in the first place for 49% of travelers compared with 46% that say it’s previous experience.
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With such long and complex online searches, the report says companies should be thinking about personalization however, 35% of consumers are not comfortable with brands collecting and sharing their personal data.
The finding presents a challenge for travel companies as 80% of consumers would like a personalized experience when booking travel if they get something in return.
The research was carried out by Censuswide with 1,005 participants split between the U.K. and the U.S. Respondents had researched and purchased travel-related products online in the past 12 months.