Traveltrends and Mobile Adoption

Smartphone adoption is a traveltrend that has unleashed a flurry of activity and innovation from travel companies that seek to tap into the powerful new capabilities made possible by portable devices and the Web. While travelers have been quick to shift certain activities to the these platforms, other functions are not yet as smartphone-friendly. To assess the status of the mobile web's impact on the travel industry, Phocuswright launched a multi-faceted study to examine industry and consumer traveltrends.

How traveltrends effect travel supplier innovation

Faced with perennially tight budgets and uncertain economic times, travel companies must focus their resources on the areas that matter most. They must pay attention to the change in traveltrends so they're ready to capitalize on the next opportunity. While the mobile platform presents huge opportunities, no company can afford to misallocate their investments in new capabilities. Phocuswright's Mobile Hits the Mainstream: Leisure and Business TravelTrends was designed to help companies understand how travelers are incorporating portable devices into their everyday lives, as well as when they travel. Because the dynamics of personal and business trips can differ substantially, the TravelTrends study isolates traveler perspectives for leisure and business trips. This report examines how travelers are utilizing the mobile Web throughout the trip life cycle, as well as what features and capabilities they find most appealing.

Traveltrends: Mobile hits the Mainstream

Traveltrends include the following:

• Smartphone ownership among leisure travelers increases to 52%, while ownership among business travelers increases to 73%.
• BlackBerry smartphones are losing out significantly to iPhone and Android phones in personal and business usage.
• iPhone users are slightly more active on the Internet than Android users, and substantially more active than BlackBerry users.
• -39% of mobile Web users access it even when Internet-connected PCs are within reach.
• -58% of mobile Web activity (among both business and leisure travelers) would have otherwise been performed on a computer; but 42% would not have been done on a computer or at all.
• Search is the most common website category for travel-related activity, followed by online travel agents, as travelers seek the convenience of aggregated content.
• Location-sensitive searching and alerts that communicate relevant, timely travel information dominate travelers' interest in the mobile Internet.
• Among mobile Web users, over a quarter (26%) of leisure travelers and more than a third (36%) of business travelers have booked a travel product on a mobile website or app in the past year.
• Relatively few travelers are comfortable with the idea of sharing their location through an online social network (13% very comfortable, 17% somewhat comfortable); more travelers (33%) are actually very uncomfortable with location-sharing.

These are important traveltrends.

Phocuswright offers a wealth of different studies analyzing whatever TravelTrends are important for your business. For more information on traveltrends regarding mobile usage and adoption purchase Phocuswright's Mobile Hits the Mainstream: Leisure and Business TravelTrends.