Mobile Transactions & the Travel Industry: Infographics for 2016

A Q4 2015 e-commerce survey, condensed into these infographics, provides good insights and guidance for what mobile technology means for the travel industry in 2016. Key take-aways:

Travel Technology is Essential: Does this sound obvious? Perhaps not in the tour operator & activities sector, where 20% of tour operators are without websites – and for those who have them, 40% lack online sales capability. For many travel companies the good news is very affordable, customizable platforms such as TINA,  AIDA  and TBS  from dcs plus make highly competitive travel technology possible for the first time. Get going!

Customers are Cross-Device: consumers are browsing and buying across several devices rather going through the sales cycle with just their phone, tablet or desktop. Half of all 2016 ecommerce transactions across the world were cross-device. This means marketing strategies should view customer behavior by sales cycle rather than by device.

Website Responsiveness Drives Mobile Sales: while shoppers browse on their mobile devices 44% of the time, only Japan, the United Kingdom & South Korea had >44% mobile share of retail transactions. All other countries experienced a drop-off as consumers shifted from mobile browsing to desktop for the actual transaction.  To tighten the relationship between mobile browsing and buying, every travel agency and tour operators must use high responsiveness standards to provide websites with robust scale and precision.   

Mobile Transactions – Growing & Growing: for the last quarter of 2015, global mobile transactions grew 15% year on year, comprising an average of 30% of ecommerce transactions across all geographies. A glance at Japan shows mobile market potential and Australia is an example of quickly mobile growth can accelerate. Every travel company in every sector must understand that to lack an effective mobile strategy is to fall behind the competition.

Mobile Apps Trigger Travel Revenues: The research also made it clear how much wider – at every conversion stage – the mobile app conversion funnel is than just mobile web browsers. In the travel industry, where sales are larger and more complex than typical retail, companies should view this is as compelling evidence travel apps adoption is hugely important. Why? Because whether a travel agency, travel management company, or tour operation, a travel app user will be their ‘stickiest’ and most consistent customer.