Mobile travel booking trends in 2016

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There is no denying the fact that mobile is indeed an inevitable and imminent part of the travel industry and those who have invested in it earlier are reaping huge benefits. The mobile bookings are on a steady rise and although travel agents and suppliers and a few customers prefer booking on a desktop, most users have embraced the mobile boon and are slowing performing most of their transactions on mobile, be it buying clothes to booking their yearly vacation. Criteo, a digital advertising solutions provider analyzed billions of pieces of information to provide the following report on mobile travel booking trends in 2016.

Mobile travel booking in 2016 –

1. Mobile accounted for about 27% of all the travel bookings performed worldwide in the Quarter 1 of 2016 and about 29% in the United States. These bookings were calculated only on mobile travel sites, excluding apps. The year 2016 is not only seeing an increase in bookings via mobile devices in general but also a boost in travel bookings made via mobile applications.
2. Mobile booking has been growing steady since the past 18 months and account for 57% of the total bookings made in the first quarter of this year. Mobile travel booking trends also show that mobile bookings are significantly higher than tablet bookings (roughly accounting to 81% of the total bookings done on mobile devices) although bookings made on tablets for annual holidays or vacations are slightly higher than mobiles because of the amount of time and efforts devoted in researching it.
3. Per a recent study from Fuel, 31% of North American leisure travellers have used at least one mobile app in planning travel, and 52% would also use a mobile app to purchase additional services while travelling.
4. The data analysed on bookings done on apps of individual hotels compared to OTA apps specializing in hotels is a bit surprising. The bookings done on individual hotels’ apps account for only 11% while the bookings done on hotel specialized apps accounted for almost one third of their total bookings.
5. Those who invested in in-app tracking and advertising are seeing a surge of bookings made from apps. In-app tracking technology allows businesses to learn users’ behaviour like their browsing and booking patterns thereby giving them a clear indication of what more to offer to their customer and when, to gain their loyalty and maximize bookings. Almost all the companies today are investing more and more in mobile and tracking technologies but those who realized this trend and invested earlier definitely have an upper hand and will continue to do so if they continue investing in them.
6. Criteo’s data also shows some astonishing stats. Of all the last-minute bookings made by customers in March 2016, almost 60% were done on mobile phones. On the contrary and quite surprisingly, the mobile bookings done on supplier systems accounted for only 30% of the total bookings which indicates that suppliers are lagging in terms of mobile adoption.

Conclusions from the study –

The study explicitly concludes the following –

1. App bookings are definitely on the rise and businesses who invested in and promoted apps early are now reaping the benefits of the same.
2. As mobile generates majority of last-minute reservations, a fully optimized mobile environment is a must-have for every travel business, be it OTAs or suppliers or individual hotel chains.
3. Comprehensive cross-device tracking is vital, as 33% of user booking decisions are influenced by multiple touchpoints.

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