Date :
26/03/2014
If you’re counting on new visitors to Scotland for your business, you really can’t afford to ignore the internet.
It’s vital to business success to remember that most travellers carry out extensive online research and book their travel and accommodation online. This is often their first contact with your business and we all know that first impressions are critical.
The Edinburgh Tourism Action Group (ETAG) shared some eye-opening stats in their Technology Market Intelligence for Tourism 2014 report. We’ve focused on the pre-trip conclusions of user behaviour from their data.
UK
Half of travel consumers in the UK researched their trip via digital channels in March 2013, with online travel review websites being the top source of information for planning a break at home or abroad, with 28% of all UK adults consulting them before a trip.
As of July 2013, Google Maps UK was the top travel site visited by UK web users, with just over 10% market share of visits, followed by TripAdvisor UK with 6.38% market share.
It's not just idle surfing. In 2013 58% of UK consumers also booked their travel online, just slightly higher than the EU average which research has shown was 53% in 2012.
Europe
In research carried out by Arkenford, 58% of Germans said they were influenced by accommodation or hotel websites as an information source. 13.3m Spanish internet users (54%) visited travel websites in 2012, while 75% of the Dutch arranged a holiday using the internet.
In Holland, a massive 87% of all visits to the UK were booked online. The top three most used booking site types by the Dutch were travel organisations/tour operators (28%), airlines (25%) and online intermediaries (such as Expedia and Booking.com) at 23%.
Australia and the USA
In Australia, 56% have booked travel online according to research by Mi9. The numbers for the US are just as dramatic, with 87% of US travellers planning their travel online.
One stop shops like kayak.com proved particularly popular in the States. It is estimated that total searches worldwide on Kayak will triple to 3.6 billion by 2019, up from 1.2 billion in 2012).
These statistics show that as well as a well-designed, informative website, your business needs to be on the major international travel review/comparison websites if potential visitors are to find you.
It's also clear that because visitors are both researching and booking their trips online, Scottish tourism businesses ideally need an e-commerce option that enables them to buy as they browse.
Mobile friendly
One in five of all travel bookings made online in Europe by 2015 are predicted to be made on a mobile device, illustrating the importance of having a mobile-friendly website.
There's an interesting discrepancy between users of certain devices too. Whilst the Android smartphones and tablets have a bigger market share than Apple's iPhones and iPads (at 41.8% to 27%), when it comes to travel bookings, Apple was shown to come out on top.
This information could help determine how you choose to advertise your business, for example you might choose to use Apple's iAds service and Google Adwords.
Further reading
ETAG data was gathered from a wide range of sources. For more in-depth information on the data, download the ETAG Technology Market Intelligence for Tourism report.