Online bookings for online travel agents, airlines, hotel, and car rental services have reached an all-time high, setting up this summer to be a record-breaking travel season. This latest Adobe Digital Index report, which looked at 51.5 billion visits, reveals overall trends that illustrate the movement toward booking travel online and provides insight into the seasonality of online reservations.
- Both direct and indirect bookings show double-digit improvement: car rental sites are experiencing the highest bookings growth at 17.4% year-over-year (YoY) and online travel agents second highest at 13.5%.
- The percentage of return shoppers, a metric which is generally equated with greater revenue per visitor and lower marketing acquisition costs, is up 1% and steadily improving, likely as a result of increased use of targeted marketing campaigns.
- Tablet average booking value is up nearly 10% YoY and yield an average well over $600 per transaction.
It’s going to be a hot sum?mer for online travel.
Based on an analysis of more than 150 mobile and global travel (airline, hotel, travel agency, car rental, cruise line and casino) web?sites from January of 2009 to April of 2013, online bookings to these travel sites typically peak in mid-July with the U.S. based companies expected to hit $54 billion in Q3, a 10.7% increase over last year. Q4, which typically sees a decline in bookings, is expected to also maintain an 8 to 10% YoY growth rate. The Q4 falloff comes from the hotel and car rental segments; however, airline bookings peak in October as road warriors return home and holiday plans are booked farther in advance.
Online bookings to these travel sites are expected to peak in mid-July with the U.S.- based companies expected to hit $54 billion, a 10.7% increase over last year, in the pivotal third quarter. The trend also demonstrates a decline in bookings in Q4 which is also a busy travel season. The fall-off comes from the hotel and car rental segments; however, airline bookings peak in October as road warriors return home and holiday plans are booked farther in advance.
Car rental sites are lead?ing the pack. Trav?el?ers are becom?ing more loyal.
Current trends indicate that car rental websites will see the largest year-over-year growth at nearly 20%. All categories will see growth rates in the double digits except for the airline category which is already the leader in overall online bookings. The trends indicate that money is moving from offline booking methods to online, but not all of the new bookings are going to online travel agents.
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