Travel / studies

Priceline.com wanted to cater to a growing global mobile device audience while increasing traffic and conversions. Priceline.com created a mobile-friendly site with current-location search, simplified content and larger buttons, and a more streamlined checkout. Using Google Mobile Ads to promote the site, Priceline.com saw these results:

• The mobile site's share of business grew 31%
• Increased the number of unique visitors by 13.9%, increased the average duration on the site by 45%, and tripled page views
• Mobile traffic increased 50% through Adwords

Re-imagine branding in the digital world for the travel industry .

Insights at your fingertips: Reach the right travel customer at the right moment, all across the web.

Insights at your fingertips: Learn how smartphones and tablets affect the travel industry .

Insights at your fingertips: Learn how online video connects travel brands with consumers.

This compilation study combines findings from Google's annual Traveler's Road to Decision study and Google search data. Learn new insights about how leisure and business travelers research and book trips across different devices. Explore how traveler search behaviors change as smartphone and tablet adoption rates continue to grow. Key findings include:

• Travelers seek value from trusted brands. Business travelers seek convenience.
• Leisure travelers turn to search engines to plan travel online; business travelers rely more heavily on supplier sites.
• Travelers increasingly turn to mobile devices to plan and book travel.
• Most leisure travelers and 70% of affluent travelers begin researching travel online, without a specific destination or mode of travel in mind.

The affluent traveler, those with a household income of $250K+, is a very shop savvy digital traveler. 56% of them plan to spend more time shopping around before booking to ensure value. Explore this study to learn how much more likely they are to turn to digital resources to ensure they have the latest and greatest travel information.

Google and Ipsos studied business, leisure and affluent travelers to understand how they move from undecided to decided. In this sub-category report, we narrow in on Daily Deal sites. Explore this report to learn how travelers utilize these sites in their planning process, general usage and frequency.

Almost 90% of travelers watch online videos. Google and Ipsos studied business, leisure and affluent travelers to better understand the role of video for today's traveler and how usage might contrast across these types of travelers. Here is a preview of what we found:

• 60% of business travelers and 41% of leisure travelers have watched, uploaded or commented on travel videos online.
• Affluent travelers gravitate towards videos that give them ideas of activities to do at a particular destination and videos that capture the feel of the accommodations at a particular destination.
• Travelers are most likely to watch online video content featuring expert travel reviews and brand-sponsored content.

Up to 70% of business travelers and 43% of leisure travelers are enrolled in travel loyalty programs. Google and Ipsos studied business, leisure and affluent travelers to understand the role of loyalty programs in the travel decision making process and what opportunities exist for marketers to influence customers. Here are some highlights:

• Leisure travelers use two loyalty programs per travel category; business travelers use up to three.
• Leisure travelers say that reward point/miles are most important when it comes to making car rental choices. Whereas business travelers say that reward point/miles are most important when it comes to hotels.
• 35% of 2012 travelers plan to make plans based on loyalty programs or incentives. Up 5 percentage points since 2010.

Travelers see the Internet as a useful source of info that helps them make travel-related decisions as well as a catalyst that triggers them to book. Check out this 2012 Google/Ipsos study that compares the role of print media against that of the internet.

62% of leisure travelers and 58% of business travelers reserve hotels online. Google and Ipsos studied leisure, business and affluent travelers to understand the path these travelers take leading up to how they make hotel purchase decisions. Here's what we found:

• Travelers use internet most for researching hotels - meanwhile they continue to decrease use of offline media such as print, TV and magazines.
• 3 in 4 business and affluent travelers belong to a hotel loyalty program versus only 2 in 5 leisure travelers.
• When booking hotels on their mobile device, travelers use the mobile web three times more than mobile apps.