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Passionate and driven, ski travelers represent an attractive and lucrative traveler segment. For many, a desire to hit the slopes is an important travel motivator that drives their leisure travel decisions. Skiers spend more, purchase further in advance and use digital sources extensively when shopping for and booking ski travel.
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Thanks to new technologies that can sift through the practically limitless amounts of data in cyberspace, shrewd use of such data will be the key factor in determining which travel companies succeed or fail in the years to come. Companies hoping to stay competitive also need to accommodate travelers with device-agnostic access to information, address specific traveler needs with targeted offers, and take advantage of cloud computing to streamline their own business operations.
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While the U.S. economy showed clear signs of recovery in 2012, there were enough mixed signals to make vacation decisions difficult for many Americans. Through a longitudinal analysis, PhoCusWright's U.S. Consumer Travel Report Fifth Edition examines traveler behavior along each step of the travel planning process - from the media travelers rely on to make destination and product decisions, to the channels they use to book and share their trip experiences. Key metrics include frequency and duration of trips, travel expenditure and travel component purchases, and travel intentions for the coming year.
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The Middle East travel market, while still in early days, is growing fast – especially online, where the region's young, tech-savvy consumers gather to socialize, politicize and yes, plan trips. PhoCusWright's Middle East Online Travel Overview – the first in-depth analysis of this emerging market – provides sizing, trending and forecasts for the region as a whole and for four major markets in particular: the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. In addition, the report offers detailed examination by segment and channel and delves into the complex technology trends shaping the market.
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Japan ceded its leadership of the Asia Pacific travel market to China in 2012, and it will remain the regional runner-up for the foreseeable future. But as the country makes slow, steady progress toward recovery from its losses during the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, the unique characteristics of its travel market - partly mature, partly developing - will continue to attract attention from global online travel agencies and hoteliers.
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Nearly two thirds of U.S. online travelers now own a smartphone, one third own a tablet and nearly a fourth own both. Rapid adoption of mobile devices among travelers is impacting every phase of the travel process, and mobile is becoming the new battleground for travel companies seeking to grow market share. This report provides a detailed assessment of the U.S. mobile travel market, including consumer behavior trends, mobile market sizing and projections for key travel segments.
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PhoCusWright partnered with global digital intelligence provider comScore to measure and analyze web traffic within the travel category in China, including unique visitors, cross-visitation and source/loss patterns. This analysis reveals the dynamics of travel research from the Chinese consumer's point of view and highlights the degrees of influence wielded by different types of travel companies: OTAs versus suppliers, local providers versus global ones, and transactional versus nontransactional sites.
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Compared to their counterparts in the U.S., hotels in Europe lag significantly in terms of revenue generated from ancillary sales - either directly through their own facilities, or via third parties. This Spotlight examines the state of ancillary hotel sales in Europe, including the types of available add-ons, distribution channels, technology drivers and growth potential.
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Until recently, travel companies' online strategies could be comfortably confined to the desktop web. However, the explosion in consumer electronics, mobile technology and social media have transformed the online experience, making it extremely challenging to address the market with a single, mainstream strategy. Mobile devices, tablets and still-evolving social platforms have changed the way travelers connect, plan and share their experiences. PhoCusWright's Traveler Technology Survey 2012 provides travel companies and marketers a comprehensive view of how the latest devices, mobile functionality and social networks are shaping the consumer travel planning process.
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The debut of Siri, Apple's intelligent personal assistant, was initially greeted with enthusiastic reviews. Since then, however, reviews have been decidedly mixed. In the meantime, interest in speech-enabled artificial intelligence has skyrocketed, and developers are now racing to bring new and improved applications to the marketplace. This Analysis considers the strengths and weaknesses of some of the latest speech-enabled intelligent personal assistants, and outlines how these tools should fit into travel companies' mobile strategies.
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