Smartphones are increasingly becoming the device of choice for people, even more so when we are talking about travellers. Thanks to the increasing number of mobile devices and their processing capabilities, we are observing a big strategic shift in industry towards mobile. Brands have to sell where the customers are and online advertising companies like Criteo have to keep a sharp eye on the industry trends to offer the best to their clients.

Daniele Beccari during his session at WIT Conference

Criteo recently published a research report for travel industry after analysing more than 1 billion bookings generated online since 2014. During the recently concluded WIT Conference in Singapore, Daniele Beccari, Head of Travel, Criteo shared some useful results they derived after analysing the data.

According to the report, share of mobile devices has now risen to 23 percent of bookings as compared to 12 percent last year. the fraction of users searching and browsing on mobiles is higher but for complicated travel bookings, desktops dominate. The rate of adoption is much higher in case of Southeast Asia as compared to Europe and Middle East.

More people book hotels and accommodation on mobile phones as compared to Rail or Airline tickets. The car rental segment is growing fast on mobile as well seeing a growth from 18 percent to 25 percent.

This trend has been observed because airline bookings usually add up to higher amount and people prefer mobile devices for smaller amounts and this holds true for most markets except Japan where the average booking values are almost same across all the devices. This to some extent, is because of the easy adoption of technology in that region. The car rental segment is catching up on mobile as most of the rental companies are relying heavily on their mobile app.

People tend to book long travel plans using desktop and mobiles account for small fraction of bookings there. But according to Criteo, 21 percent of bookings aren’t correctly measured by advertisers as the click is made on one device while the transaction is completed on the other. Of course the trend is different in case of last minute bookings where mobile devices dominate the scene.

Travel marketers need to track the users across multiple devices to offer relevant information to them and facilitate the booking process. In-app tracking can also help generate meaningful data and drive more bookings from the app only.

The full report can be found here.

‘The Mobile Opportunity’ session was conducted during WIT Conference 2015 which was organised as a part of TravelRave. You can read rest of the stories from TravelRave here.

The post “Apps are now generating much more bookings as compared to last year”-Daniele Beccari, Head of Travel, Criteo appeared first on TravHQ.

Founded by Jean-Baptiste Rudelle, Franck le Ouay and Romain Niccoli in 2005, Criteo is a personalized retargeting company with over 1500 employees worldwide. It involves itself with internet retailers and helps them in displaying personalized online ads to the targeted consumers.

Image Source: Pixabay

Since last year, Criteo reviewed more than 1 billion bookings made by travel suppliers and online travel agencies that exist globally. Recently, they’ve published the travel flash report which highlights a few interesting facts. Here are some of them:

#1. Mobile is the biggest influencer in travel booking

It doesn’t spring a surprise that mobile has been the biggest influencer in travel booking. The share of mobile booking has almost doubled, increasing from 12% to 23% globally. Mobile adoption has grown but is not consistent. Japan leads in the share of bookings coming from mobile devices. Western countries, Latin America and European markets lag behind.

#2. Is there a link between the booking preferences and devices used for it?

The travel flash report states that mobile users prefer to book their flight tickets through tablets. For hotel bookings smart phones are preferred. 14% of the bookings take place through smart-phones and 10% through tablets. It has also been mentioned that in case of urgency, people tend to book through smartphone for discounts and exclusive offers.

#3. Travellers have a preference of when and how they book the tickets

The share of smartphone bookings is higher during the weekends. During weekdays, smartphone bookings are more in the mornings but they decrease as the day progresses. For simple booking, smartphones are often preferred but when it comes to comparing prices, the same group of people chose desktops. This might be possible since desktops have a bigger screen. So, it’s convenient to compare prices then.

#4. The longer the stay, the bigger the screen!

This might be a surprise for many! The travel flash report states that when bookings have to be made for shorter stays, travellers tend to use smartphones. ‘Smartphones in particular account for just 10 percent of the bookings for stays of a week or more, but they account for 18 percent of one-night stays.’ Tablets constitute 10% of the one-night stay bookings.

#5. Travel Season = Mobile Season

Most of the people travel to their favourite destinations during springs and summers. In these seasons, mobile adoption increases and their usage too. Especially, from January to June in most of the regions except in the Southern Hemisphere.

#6. Hotel OTAs v/s Hotel Suppliers

OTAs lead the bookings made via smartphones in comparison to hotel suppliers. The disparity b/w the two is quite wide and OTAs account for almost thrice the bookings made by hotel suppliers themselves.

For the complete travel flash report, click here.

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