COMMENT: OTA travel booking trends for 2016
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Online travel agents have a great deal of information to gather before starting an SEO campaign, which is why we have studied the major travel trends for 2016 and the customer demographics for each.
With so much choice available online, OTAs must target the right audience with the right packages at the right time through SEO and PPC based on anticipated travel trends for the year. Out of all holiday types, our research indicates that ski travel agents, activity and adventure travel agents, city breaks specialists, celebrations and honeymoon specialists, beach holiday travel agents, cruise specialists, music events and sports travel specialist, all inclusive package and tour specialists, and domestic breaks specialists will be popular OTAs in 2016.
For each travel agent type or specialty we have studied customers by age groups, gender, UK location, income and social grade, relationship status, holidays per year, value and spend, travel partners and identified their favourite (and booming) destinations.
Ski travel agents might want to focus on the 40-60 age group this year (56% of ski trip bookers last year), with family-friendly packages for large groups in France (Val d’Izere, Courchevel and Meribel) and Switzerland (Verbier, Zermatt and Gstaad).
Activity and adventure travel agents may benefit from search campaigns for an audience of the 16-24 and 25-34 age groups, especially single women who are a booming market in 2016 (looking to book walking holidays and African safaris). Male customers will be more inclined to book sailing and cycling trips.
City breaks specialists are especially appealing to the 55-64 age group and might want to refine their paid search campaigns’ targeted locations to South East England, Greater London and the Midlands where most of their customers are – a tip that applies to Facebook and Linkedin ads too.
Celebrations and honeymoon specialists obviously target newlyweds, with celebration and hen/stag do’s most popular within the 25-34 age group. Travel agents are the obvious choice for honeymoons as customers rely emotionally on their expertise, which means the trust factor must be emphasized in search marketing campaigns.
Beach holiday travel agents must target families with school age children, children under five as well as the 16-24 age group, as they all favour beach vacations: with Spain and France being key destinations for 2016, increase promotion for these packages in the months leading up to Spring/Summer.
Cruise specialists will benefit from campaigns pushing new booming destinations such as Central Asia, Cambodia, Vietnam, and European rivers this year, and targeting families, couples and a market on the rise: singles.
Music events and sports travel specialists will be most popular among the 25-34 age group in 2016 with 11% of them planning such a trip. A male dominated trend, sports events trips will attract customers from all locations this year, with major events such as the Euro cup in France boosting high value bookings involving long hauls.
All-inclusive package and tour specialists need to push abroad holiday packages such as Cuba, Mexico and USA, the most popular destinations for bespoke packages including private cars. The North West region is most likely to go an all inclusive holiday, so they must be the priority in ad targeting.
Domestic breaks specialists might want to focus on families (43% of market) and promote Cornwall, London, Lake District and Yorkshire packages, in particular customers in the South West, who are most likely to only take a UK holiday (30%).
Overall, ‘staycations’ and city breaks are at the top of UK travellers’ favourite holidays, with adventure travel as new trend for older age groups and singles in 2016. Cornwall is still the nation’s favourite for domestic breaks, with Abu Dhabi, Spain and Cambodia as top choices for adventure, beach holidays and river cruising.
POLARIS is a travel SEO agency based in London
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