US $1,395.00
|
|
PhoCusWright's Online Traffic and Conversion Report
September 2009
US $1,395 CA $1,432 £934 €1025
Purchase the report and receive the audio/video recording of the October 20 Webinar, Key 2009 Online Traffic & Conversion Trends.
Powerful trends are changing the way consumers use the Internet to plan their travel. In the early days of online travel, Web sites were preoccupied with the all-important task of booking reservations and their offerings reflected this priority. Now that online reservations are commonplace, consumers want tools to make better decisions in the planning and shopping process. Innovation has risen to meet demand in many forms, including user-generated content, metasearch and semantic search.
PhoCusWright has partnered with Compete Inc., to decipher the trends shaping how U.S. consumers are using today's vast and varied landscape of travel sites, and how patterns have changed over the past several years. PhoCusWright's Online Traffic and Conversion Report provides an overview of two critical online consumer behavior metrics: traffic (monthly unique visitors) and conversion (the percentage of monthly unique visitors who complete a transaction within the month). Using these core metrics, this report presents an analysis of major categories within the travel vertical, including both transactional and nontransactional sites. Individual sectors, such as air, hotel and car rental, are analyzed to explore the dynamic between supplier sites and OTAs, as well as how nontransactional sites, such as deal publishers and review sites, affect conversion.
PhoCusWright's Online Traffic and Conversion Report analyzes:
- Travel Web site traffic
- Conversion rates
- Defection and switching
- Transactional categories: Air, hotel, car and cruise suppliers and online travel agencies
- Nontransactional categories: Travel guides, lead generators, metasearch, planning and reviews, destination and tourism
- Traffic reviews: Southwest Airlines, Hilton, Expedia, TripAdvisor and Kayak
Travelers have a wealth of information at their fingertips scattered across thousands of travel Web sites. As a result, travel companies need to understand which sites and categories travelers are visiting during each phase of the travel planning process, and what impact this visitation has on bookings. Only then can suppliers and retailers make efficient ad placement, marketing and partnership decisions.
Learn more about online travel performance and benchmark your site’s traffic and performance with invaluable data from PhoCusWright and Compete Inc.
Targeted insight into how metasearch and review Web sites are influencing the core dynamics of online travel is available in the sub-report, PhoCusWright's Online Traffic and Conversion Report: Metasearch, Reviews and Other Nontransactional Categories.
Table of Contents
Methodology
|
52 Pages
Overview, Methodology and Key Findings
Introduction
Methodology
Key Findings
The Big Picture
Booking Sites: Overview
Booking Sites: Air
Booking Sites: Hotel
Booking Sites: Car Rental
OTA and Packages
Nontransactional Categories
Conclusion
LIST OF TABLES
Summary of Traffic to Travel Categories* (Monthly Unique Category Visitors)
Traffic to Travel Categories (Monthly Unique Category Visitors)
Traffic to Product Categories by Channel (Monthly Unique Category Visitors)
Supplier Share of Product Purchasers
Conversion Rates by Product Category and Channel
Quarterly Conversion Rates by Product Category and Channel
2009 Conversion Rates for Air and Hotel Product Categories
Travelers Who Shop Channel But Do Not Complete a Booking Through the Channel Shopped Within a Month
Channel Leakage by Product for Suppliers and OTAs
Aggregate Product Shoppers Who Also Visited Nontransactional Categories
Air Shopping Conversion Rates by Channel
Booking Habits of Air Shoppers by Channel, 2Q09
Supplier and OTA Air Shoppers Who Also Visit Nontransactional Categories
Conversion Rates of Supplier and OTA Air Shoppers Who Visit Nontransactional Categories
Comparison of Air Conversion Rates Based on Nontransactional Category Visitation by Channel, 2Q09
Supplier Air Bookers – Immediate Referrals
Air Shopping: Top Five Sites per Channel by Unique Visitors, June 2009
Southwest Airlines Monthly Unique Visitors
Southwest Airlines Web Site Metrics
Southwest Airlines: Top 10 Upstream Referrers
Hotel Shopping Conversion Rates by Channel
Booking Habits of Hotel Shoppers by Channel, 2Q09
Supplier and OTA Hotel Shoppers Who Also Visit Nontransactional Categories
Conversion Rates of Supplier and OTA Hotel Shoppers Who Visit Nontransactional Categories
Comparison of Hotel Conversion Rates Based on Nontransactional Category Visitation by Channel, 2Q09
Supplier Hotel Bookers – Immediate Referrals
Hotel Shopping: Top Five Sites per Channel by Unique Visitors, June 2009
Hilton Hotels Monthly Unique Visitors
Hilton Hotels Web Site Metrics
Car Shopping Conversion Rates by Channel
Booking Habits of Car Rental Shoppers by Channel, 2Q09
Supplier and OTA Car Rental Shoppers Who Also Visit Nontransactional Categories by Channel
Conversion Rates of Supplier and OTA Car Rental Shoppers Who Visit Nontransactional Categories
Comparison of Conversion Rates Based on Nontransactional Category Visitation by Channel, 2Q09
Car Shopping: Top Five Sites per Channel by Unique Visitors, June 2009
OTA Monthly Unique Category Visitors
OTA Monthly Unique Category Visitors by Share
OTA Monthly Unique Category Visitors by Product
OTA Conversion by Product
OTA Package and Vacation Packager Monthly Unique Category Visitors
Expedia Monthly Unique Visitors
Expedia Visitors by Product (% of Total Unique Visitors)
Expedia Conversion Rates by Product
Expedia: Top 10 Upstream Referrers
Traffic to Nontransactional Categories
Metasearch and Planning & Reviews: Top Five Sites by Unique Visitors, June 2009
TripAdvisor Unique Monthly Visitors
TripAdvisor Web Site Usage (% of Unique Visitors)
Hotel Conversion Rates of TripAdvisor Visitors (Monthly and 15-Day)
Analysis of TripAdvisor Visitors Who Book a Hotel Within theSame Month
TripAdvisor Hotel Booking Distribution Among 15-Day Bookers
Kayak Unique Monthly Visitors
Comparison of Kayak Product Searches
Kayak Visitor Interaction with Text Ads and Lead Generators (New Window)
Kayak Booking Transfers
Air Conversion Rates of Kayak Visitors (Monthly and 15-Day)
Analysis of Kayak Visitors Who Book Air Within Same Month
Kayak Air Booking Distribution Among 15-Day Bookers
PhoCusWright and Compete analyzed traffic to and among the following online travel categories from January 2007 through June 2009:
Transactional categories:
- Online travel agencies (OTAs): Web sites that feature online booking for multiple suppliers for one or more supply types
- Examples: expedia.com, orbitz.com, travelocity.com, priceline.com, hotels.com
- Airlines: Web sites officially operated by airlines
- Examples: southwest.com, delta.com, aa.com, jetblue.com, united.com
- Hotel companies: Web sites officially operated by hotel chains
- Examples: hilton.com, holidayinn.com, bestwestern.com, hamptoninn.com marriott.com, marriott.com
- Car rental companies: Web sites operated by car rental companies
- Examples: enterprise.com, hertz.com, budget.com, avis.com, alamo.com
- Cruise lines: Web sites operated by cruise lines
- Vacation packagers: Web sites featuring tour operator or dynamically packaged products
- Examples: funjet.com, libertytravel.com, pleasantholidays.com, southwestvacations.com, aavacations.com
- Vacation rentals: Web sites featuring the vacation home rental, fractional ownership and timeshares
- Examples: homeaway.com, flipkey.com, wyndham-vacations.com, resortquest.com, marriottvacationclub.com
- Casinos: Web sites officially operated by casinos and the lodging properties associated with them
- Examples: harrahs.com, mgmmirage.com, planethollywood.com, theborgata.com, mohegansun.com
Nontransactional categories:
- Online travel agencies (OTAs): Web sites that feature online booking for multiple suppliers for one or more supply types
- Examples: expedia.com, orbitz.com, travelocity.com, priceline.com, hotels.com
- Travel guides: Web sites that feature general information and editorial advice for travelers
- Examples: trails.com, away.com, virtualtourist.com, roadsideamerica.com, frommers.com
- Lead generators: Web sites that primarily serve to direct visitors to other sites based on a listing of offers or facilitating searches on multiple sites at once
- Examples: travelzoo.com, cheapflights.com, bookingbuddy.com, shermanstravel.com, smartertravel.com
- Metasearch: Web sites that feature the aggregation of real-time product information from multiple sites into a single display and direct visitors to these sites to book
- Examples: kayak.com, sidestep.com, fly.com, mobissimo.com, farecompare.com
- Planning & reviews: Web sites that feature user-generated reviews and trip planning tools
- Examples: tripadvisor.com, igougo.com, mytravelguide.com, realtravel.com, cruisecritic.com
- Destination & tourism: Web sites operated by destination marketing organizations such as convention and visitor bureaus and those that feature destination-specific information
- Examples: virginia.org, visitflorida.com, showhotel.com, hawaii.com, sandiego.org
Please note that although a handful of sites in the nontransactional categories may process travel bookings (e.g., some destination marketing organizations), these sites and categories are defined as nontransactional because their primary function is to provide travel information and/or referrals. Similarly, a small portion of transactional sites do not offer online booking capability, but their shared purpose is generally to facilitate transactions.
In addition to analyzing traffic patterns among the cited categories overall, PhoCusWright’s Online Traffic and Conversion Report analyzes individual three-product categories – air, hotel and car rental – as well as OTAs, metasearch, and planning and reviews. For each of these products (with the exception of car rental), the analysis drills down to the Web site level by presenting a collection of case studies on these representative sites: Southwest Airlines, Hilton, Expedia, TripAdvisor and Kayak.
Compete conducted analysis for the study through its proprietary data methodology, including the following:
- Two million active panelists, aggregated from 10+ unique data sources (proprietary panels, plus ISP and ASP partnerships).
- Usage, demographic and geographic weighting to match independent monthly Omnibus survey.
- Extrapolation to make data representative of U.S. Internet population.
- Triangulation across sources to identify and rebalance for bias.
Compete captures and calculates metrics using the following methodology:
MONTHLY UNIQUE VISITORS (VISITORS):
This reflects visitors to a specified Web site during the specified calendar month, and counts each visitor once regardless of how many times he or she visits within the month.
MONTHLY UNIQUE CATEGORY VISITORS (CATEGORY VISITORS):
This reflects visitors to a specified Web site category during the specified calendar month, and counts each visitor once regardless of how many times or how many different Web sites he or she visits in the category within the month.
MONTHLY UNIQUE PRODUCT SHOPPERS (AIR/HOTEL/CAR RENTAL/CRUISE/PACKAGE SHOPPERS):
For OTAs, this reflects monthly unique category visitors (to the top seven OTAs) who have initiated a search for the specified product within the specified calendar month, and counts each visitor once regardless of how many times he or she searched within the month. When applied to supplier Web sites, the term “shopper” refers to all monthly unique visitors of supplier Web sites, regardless of whether or not they conducted a product search. Please note that supplier Web sites therefore have slightly inflated shopper volumes, and slightly underrepresented conversion rates in comparison to OTAs.
CONVERSION RATE (CONVERSION):
Monthly unique purchasers reflect visitors who make a purchase on a specified Web site during a specified calendar month, and count each purchaser once regardless of how many times he or she purchases within the month. Conversion is calculated by dividing monthly unique purchasers into monthly unique visitors (or OTA product shoppers).
QUARTERLY VISITORS/SHOPPERS/CONVERSION:
This is calculated by averaging results for the three calendar months within the specified quarter.
