Search Marketing for Travel Sector Websites

What you should know about search patterns of UK travel consumers

Google and the online behaviour analyst ComScore recently reported results of a study into search patterns of UK travel consumers.

The study found that, in the UK, search engines are increasingly used to find and buy travel and holidays. Travel consumers are also using and combining a variety of search query types to research, compare, purchase or book travel online.

The study involved a sample of over 20,000 UK consumers and reviewed their search queries for travel sector terms and search paths during the buying process. Activity across all major UK search engines was tracked over a 12 week period in early 2007.

Travel consumers are prepared to spend a lot of time researching what they want and find the best deal:

• on average, the study found that travel consumers make 12 travel related searches and visit some 22 websites over a period of about a month,
• 54% of travel consumers start searching with generic product or destination search terms,
• over a third of all buyers use a generic term as the last search before they purchase
• 10% of searches use no brand terms at all in searches,
• some 45% of transactions do not occur until 4 weeks after the initial search,
• most consumers visit the successful travel website 3.9 times before making their purchase.

These findings hold important implications for those marketing and designing travel sector websites. The fact that consumers are using generic terms, and at all stages of their research and purchase path, provides more opportunities for travel websites to market more widely for new customers. Those websites marketing purely on a brand basis could be missing out.

The number of visits and re-visits to each site highlighted in the study also serves to show how important it is that customers can easily find the information they are looking for and that information is kept fresh and relevant to keep customers returning.

If you would like advice about marketing your accommodation, travel or holiday website, please contact Web Search Workshop UK now.

Web Search Workshop UK team are experts at creating, optimising and running PPC and online marketing campaigns and search engine optimisation. Read more about our PPC management service.

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