Google Travel Survey

Going online with Google is how many Canadians search for travel brands when booking vacations.  Google undertook an online survey of those that had researched websites about travel and found that 96% of travel shoppers used the internet as the leading source of information. Much like the subscription newspapers, the use of a brick and mortar travel agency seems to be fading as 70% of purchases are made online.

Google is the king of search engines and the vast majority choose it over  less popular sites like Yahoo and Bing as they look for travel deals. Zoomers, or those over 45, do the most online research, probably because they have available money and time for vacations, and they start their research 60 days prior to booking.

Typical travel purchases are hotel rooms (36%), airline flights (30%) and vacations (29%). It looks like people split up the purchases to cherry pick the best deals as they become their own travel agent. Half of vacation bookers spend from $1,000 to $3,000.

• Most hotel shoppers spend an average of $100 to $500, booking 3 to 4 times per year
• Most air shoppers spend an average of $500 to $1,000, booking 3 to 4 times per year

Tourists take in Toronto on a double-decker, open top bus

The numbers of mobile phone shoppers is increasing as smartphones are becoming the norm. Mobile researchers tend to travel more and spend more money on travel. Damn, is there anything that mobile phone users cannot do as they shop at home, at work or while being rude when visiting friends and family or in restaurants. Other mobile stats reported by Google are as follows.

• 1 in 4 travelers use their mobile phone to research vehicle rental
• Almost half of mobile researchers booked travel 2-3 times in past 6 months (vs. 34% of non-mobile researchers)
• 46% of mobile researchers spent $500-$3000 on last travel purchase versus 39% of non-mobile researchers
• Consumers are using their mobile devices to shop for travel products mostly in their home (75%), at work (35%) visiting friends and family (27%), in restaurants (26%) and in line (23%)

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