Research Insights Travel industry adspend on digital channels has surpassed two thirds of all adspend

Travel industry adspend on digital channels has surpassed two thirds of all adspend

Published:
February 2018
Analyst:
Douglas Quinby

Travel industry adspend on digital channels has surpassed two thirds of all adspend

Online channels have long dominated leisure travel distribution, but industry spend on digital advertising channels has taken its time to catch up. This is changing – and rapidly. The Travel Marketer's Guide to the U.S. Digital Travel Landscape, a free research report by Phocuswright prepared in partnership with Bing, finds that digital channel share has surpassed two thirds of total travel industry expenditure on advertising (adspend). Online travel companies – including OTAs and metasearch sites – allocate significantly more of their adspend (nearly three fourths) to digital.

Mobile is also playing a larger role in travel advertising. On average, travel supplier brands allocate 44% of their digital spend to mobile channels, while online travel firms are even more focused on mobile advertising, allocating more than half.


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The Travel Marketer's Guide to the U.S. Digital Travel Landscape covers key trends in online travel marketing – an essential primer for today’s modern travel marketer. This paper covers the following:

  • The digital traveler journey
  • The state of online travel adspend
  • The impact of online advertising, by channels (search, social, display, etc.)
  • Travel ad recall rates
  • The role of loyalty programs
  • Travel brands' plans for new tech, including voice, AI, virtual reality and more

Want to go deeper into the state of digital travel advertising trends in the U.S. and Europe? Join Phocuswright analysts to support our current special project Travel Advertising in U.S. and Europe: Industry Sizing and Trends. This forthcoming project will be the first major market sizing and trends analysis of travel advertising by channel, device and travel industry segment, covering all of the essential trends in defining digital travel advertising.