There's More to Mobile Than Local and Last Minute

Local and last minute may be two central trends amid mobile's rise in travel, but smartphones and tablets are playing a growing role across all phases of travel planning. New Global Edition research from Phocuswright indicates that while mobile transactions are disproportionately last minute, a significant volume of flight and hotel searches are occurring well in advance of departure.

In Parsing Shop and Book: How Airlines, Hotels and OTAs Compete on the Desktop and Mobile Web, Phocuswright partnered with Adara to analyze some 2.5 billion online search and booking events across U.S. airline, hotel and online travel agency (OTA) desktop and mobile websites. This report provides in-depth search and booking behavior segmentation by channel (OTA, airline and hotel websites), device OS (Windows, Mac, Android and iOS) and loyalty (non-members, members and elite members of airline and hotel loyalty programs).

Parsing Shop and Book shows that although a significantly higher percentage of flight and especially hotel bookings via mobile occur close to departure and check-in, half of mobile flight searches and nearly one in four mobile hotel searches take place at least one month in advance of travel.

"The last-minute mobile shopper – especially for accommodation – represents an enormous opportunity, but it is by no means the only one travel companies should focus on," said Douglas Quinby, vice president, research at Phocuswright. "Travel planning, or even just day dreaming, is increasingly moving to mobile, and travel companies need to embrace travel discovery as well as spontaneity across all devices."

Phocuswright's Parsing Shop and Book: How Airlines, Hotels and OTAs Compete on the Desktop and Mobile Web assesses trends in traveler search and booking behavior and draws comparisons across key industry segments in the U.S. online travel market. The study, based on an analysis of 2.5 billion search and book sessions across Adara's U.S. travel industry data partners, focuses on search and booking trends across U.S. airline, hotel and OTA desktop and mobile websites.

Topics include:

• Book-to-search ratio (conversion)
• Advance purchase (booking window) trends
• Class of service and international vs. domestic bookings for flights
• Length of stay and average daily rate for hotels

With segmentation by:

• Booking channel (suppliers vs. OTAs)
• Platform (desktop and the mobile web, with segmentation by operating system)
• Traveler loyalty status with airlines and hotels

Purchase Phocuswright's Parsing Shop and Book: How Airlines, Hotels and OTAs Compete on the Desktop and Mobile Web to gain insight into channel, platform and loyalty dynamics within the U.S. online travel marketplace.