Search Is Still King, But For How Long?

When it comes to travel ad spend on digital, search is clearly king. Two in five digital travel ad dollars are spent on search – two and a half times greater than the next largest category. However, as the digital advertising landscape transforms over the next several years, travel companies will shift budgets to newer channels, and search as a share of ad spend will slip.

According to a new Phocuswright Global Edition report, The U.S. Travel Advertising Marketplace: Industry Sizing and Trends 2015, U.S. travel advertisers spent over US$800 million on keyword search in 2013. Search spend will continue to grow through 2015, but advertisers are already shifting a larger share of dollars into newer, faster growing buckets.

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"Search has been a critical battleground for traveler demand, and the industry has amassed armies of SEO soldiers over the last decade and a half," says Tom Powell, Phocuswright research analyst. "But fundamental shifts forged by social, mobile, video, programmatic and app-led ecosystems are creating a far more fragmented digital landscape and call for new advertising strategies and skills."

The U.S. Travel Advertising Marketplace: Industry Sizing and Trends 2011-2015 report sizes the U.S. travel advertising market and examines the trends, practices and budget allocations by travel industry sector and advertising channel from 2011 to 2015.

Topics include:

• How various segments within the travel industry (airline, cruise, DMO, hotel, OTA and other) are allocating their advertising dollars
• How much is spent on traditional offline channels (e.g., TV, print, out-of-home and radio) vs. online (e.g., search, video, social, referral, metasearch, display)
• How mobile and the rise in digital ad spend will impact the advertising landscape over the next two years
• Allocation by device, such as desktop, smartphone and tablet
• Trends in general search, metasearch, social, online video, and more
• How advertisers are dealing with the attribution dilemma
• The role of Big Data and programmatic tactics

Purchase The U.S. Travel Advertising Marketplace: Industry Sizing and Trends 2015 for more analysis on travel advertising spend.