Depressing news for those throwing resources at creating travel applications for iPads et al, with research revealing a paltry 7% of US travellers are accessing the web via a tablet device.
The annual Portrait of American Travelers study from marketing and brand intelligence agency YPartnership uncovered the perhaps shocking statistic despite tablets being the "latest rage" in mobile computing circles.
The findings appear to be in complete contrast to a similar study by trip management company TripIt, which found 70% of members have or want to own an iPad device.
YPartnership's survey (annually talks to 2,500 US adults with at least one overnight trip in previous 12 months) did shed some light on the activities of the 7% that do actually access the web via a tablet device.
Researching in-destination services such as restaurants and things to do, inevitably, came out on top with 46%, while travel search featured only shortly behind with 42%.
Other notable activities included:
- Air or hotel booking - 37%
- Researching reviews - 35%
- Navigating a destination using GPS - 27%
- Visitor guides - 26%
- Sharing information and images - 24%
- Check-in services (FourSquare etc) - 18%
YPartnerships says one of the trends to note is that the popularity of activities has a tendency to mirror those of travellers accessing the web via smartphones.