When plans begin to develop, and the anticipation of a vacation starts to take over. Part 3 of this series of six on travel micro-moments delves into planning-to-plan-time-moments, the moments which occur after a location is decided upon. It also explains how travel marketing can make the most of this critical moment of decision.
When someone decides on a destination, the dreams begin to be realized. Sometimes, people can turn to a device and set the wheels to start the research process for travel.
The top things travelers look for in these micro-moments include prices, hotel reviews/pictures/cost/availability, flight length, travel schedules, and activities in the destination.1
Today’s leisure travelers are more likely to search for flights using their phones than for music.
Over one-third of smartphone users agree that when they conduct research using their phones, they’ve found a brand new travel business. 2 And it’s even more so for millennials: 50% of them discovered a brand new travel brand while looking up using mobile. 3
Travel Content Takes Off on YouTube
If you’re not engaged in the discussion at this point on the buyer’s journey, occasions are an excellent opportunity to get there.
Snapshot of an actual traveler’s decision-making process
The online world is increasingly influencing how people decide on their next vacation. The latest clickstream data from Luth Research’s opt-in panels (illustrating the websites a user has visited and the order they called them) gives a glimpse of the real-life traveler’s planning instances. By analyzing the traveler’s searches, clicks, site visits, and video views when she was planning her next trip, We can determine precisely what digital factors were influencing the destinations she chose to visit.
Meet Gina. Gina is a woman in her mid-life who hails from Nevada and travels across the country to San Diego for a mother’s conference. Her trip is fun and business-related, and she’s seeking enjoyable activities with her daughter while visiting Southern California.
How do you win the time-to-make-a-plan-moment? Make sure you are there and effective.
You can see that planning-time instances are essential for marketing professionals to succeed. Although these opportunities might seem fleeting, There are some practical ways to ensure that your brand’s presence is relevant at this stage during the customer journey.
Appear when users look up the details of the destination. During the planning stage, travelers believe that the search engine is the most popular method to discover the company they will make reservations through. 1 Common searches during the time-to-plan-a-plan period comprise “hotels in [destination],” “car rentals in [destination],” and “flights to [destination].”
Travel Trends: 4 Mobile Moments Changing the Consumer Journey
Make sure you are prepared for the moments occurring on smartphones. Consider this: 70% of people who use smartphones have researched using their smartphones. In reality, you could be pleasantly surprised that over 50 percent of Google Flights visitors use mobile devices. 5 And people who are on vacation today are just more likely to search for flights using their phones as they are to buy songs. 6 With this in mind, we’ve designed our website to ensure Google Flights displays current information and connects users to airlines with a mobile-friendly approach.
Hotels’ information is also searched via mobile. Indeed, specific searches, such as hotels with certain amenities, tend to be performed on smartphones. “Hotel with an indoor pool” and “hotel with jacuzzi in room” are among the most searched-for hotel amenities on smartphones. As of March, most of these hotel searches are done on phones. 7
We’ve crafted how hotels’ search results show up to users on Google to assist users in finding the best hotel by filtering their mobile devices for amenities. This, in turn, helps attract more qualified customers for the brands.
Learn from a hotel marketer and a marketer for airlines who connect with travelers during planning occasions.
La Quinta’s mobile traffic has increased by a third in the past three years. The majority of internet users come via mobile devices. When the season was at its peak last season, La Quinta decided to switch to the mobile version of Google Hotel Ads to connect to more customers in their planning moments and boost qualified leads. This increased traffic to their new mobile site, designed to meet the increasing number of travelers looking for hotels that are accessible on the go.
The results were impressive. “Hotel Ads are performing at a significantly stronger conversion rate; twice what we see for regular traffic on mobile,” Ted Schweitzer, the SVP of marketing and ecommerce for La Quinta Inns & Suites. “And that makes a big difference in terms of results.”
There’s more to discover. Look at this deeper review of La Quinta’s method of making time-based plans with a video with interviews of the people driving this approach to create the company’s brand.
Another excellent example should be Etihad, the nation’s airline in the United Arab Emirates. The company aids consumers to make more informed choices by using actual flight information in its display and search ads.
Customers of Etihad are traveling around the globe. Etihad discovered that the most effective method to help customers is to provide the information they need to guide their decision-making. Etihad utilized its report from Google Flights to populate display and search ads dynamically and with the most current information on prices and flight schedules.
