Analyst Speak: Understanding the needs of your online travel audience

5 March 2009

“Looking at the sites people use for holiday information reveals how fragmented the online audience has become”

One of the greatest sales messages the internet has created for the travel industry is that it has made travel cheaper. Nearly two-thirds (63%) of 20-74-years-olds surveyed by Continental Research in December 2008 agreed prices had come down as a result of the web. The message is clearly paying dividends as over a quarter (28%) of this age group say they’re now going away more.

The wealth of information available on the internet now presents a real challenge to anyone offering a travel service to ensure their message reaches the desired audience. Just looking at the sites people use for holiday information reveals how fragmented the online audience has become. The most popular are the all-in-one sites such as Expedia and Lastminute.com, which have a bias towards the younger traveller. In comparison, tour operator and tourist board sites have greater appeal with an older audience.

Not only are there many genres of site, the audiences who use different sites have quite diverse profiles. It’s still a real challenge for marketers to fully understand the make-up of visitors to individual sites and how to reach new audiences. If visitors leaves their details, then it’s possible to build a picture of who these customers are. However, knowing who the many people who visit a site and don’t leave any details is just as important, as they’re potential customers and these visits could have a strong influence in the purchasing process.

What makes the internet different from other established media is the sheer volume of sites and the number of people who have access to them. This makes traditional audience measurement difficult, particularly if information is required at the individual site level. For example, if one drills down more specifically into travel sector sites, then hotels are just one area of holiday information people require.

The Continental Research survey asked what sites people usually visited to find out about hotels to stay in. A long list of different types of site emerged. The most popular was the hotel’s own website (45%), followed by price-comparison sites (29%), independent travel advice sites (27%), hotel listings websites (26%) and tourist board sites (24%).

For the tens of thousands of sites that make up the holiday sector to capitalise on the additional trips being generated by the internet, those that have good understanding of their audience will benefit most.

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