Capitalising on the trends in the UK travel market Robin Devlin Industry Manager, Travel - Google UK
Tough times...uncharted waters
The digital stage 70% BB at home 17p spent online 90% Must have broadband within a month 41m People are online in the UK 30p In every pound is spent online Hours online You tube / itunes Hours online 80% Internet users compare prices and options 1 in 3 Consumers post a comment online in a typical week 15 hours Of videos uploaded to YouTube every minute
Insight Agility Efficiency Pace
What are travel consumers habits during this economy? 34% of Britain's spend a whole day trying to find the best holiday deal 20% spend at least 8 hours trawling the internet for a cheap deal 14% will commit a whole day to researching flights and accommodation 8% will spend hours reading reviews by fellow travellers Greenbee.com survey sample 1,000 UK adults; January 2009
Travel queries in Q1 have grown by 11% year on year March 08 v March 09 + 17% Travel Queries
2009 to date: top 20 most searched for destinations google.co.uk Jan 2006 Mar 2009 1. London 2. Manchester 4. Liverpool 5. Edinburgh 7. Blackpool 8. Newcastle 9. Leeds 13. Stansted 17. Rome 18. Prague 14. Brighton 15. Belfast 16. Lakes District 19. Cornwall 3. New York 12. Las Vegas 10. Cyprus 11. Tenerife 6. Dubai 20. Thailand
2009 to date: top 20 most searched for destinations google.co.uk Jan 2006 Mar 2009 1 London 11 Tenerife 2 Manchester 12 Las Vegas 3 4 New York Liverpool 13 14 Stanstead Brighton 5 6 7 8 Edinburgh Dubai Blackpool Newcastle 15 16 17 18 Belfast Lake District Rome Prague 9 Leeds 19 Cornwall 10 Cyprus 20 Thailand * Google internal data Jan 2006 Mar 2009
Demand for European city breaks Demand for travel to Paris and Berlin remains strong Queries for Barcelona, Amsterdam and Rome are growing YoY, despite the currency fluctuations
Demand for short-haul sun breaks In 2009 YTD, Google has seen exceptionally strong query growth in North African and Eastern European destinations Query growth for more traditional British holiday destinations within the Eurozone is modest
Demand for long haul holidays First half of 2008, query volume for holidays in the USA was exceptionally high Since then, fewer searches for holidays to the USA since the US dollar has strengthened by 37% against the pound Comparison of year-on-year query growth (YTD) of popular holiday destinations in the USA with other long-haul destinations
Banking on May 1. May bank holidays offer the greatest uplift in travel queries since January 2. History shows that the peak in travel queries in the run up to the second May bank holiday is higher than the first May bank holiday 3. Expect a surge in traffic during the week before the second bank holiday as consumers book closer to departure date + 5% 2008 2007
Insight Agility Efficiency Pace
All Travel - Queries There has been a shift in consumer behaviour in 2009 so far, with more travel searches on Sundays and slightly less on Monday and Tuesday 14
Consumers search through the purchase process Before a first transaction, on average: 12 travel searches 22 travel sites 29 days Source: Comscore Research Paper October 2007
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Get religious about conversion 60% of online shopping carts are abandoned 12% before checkout, 48% at checkout 57% of online shoppers are less likely to buy from a brand offline if they experienced problems online Redesign and test to ensure maximum revenue Source: Tealeaf Press Release 2008 Tealeaf Survey Highlights Potential Multi-Billion Dollar Business" 1 7
Which site converts better? Winning Page: 20.2% Conversion Lift!
We re done! (phew )