It’s the age of digitalization. Google has become the first place people look for answers to their questions. Everyone reads reviews. A company’s reputation is nowadays often judged purely by its online presence. There’s hardly anything you can’t buy online, and travel is no exception. Condor Ferries’ Online Travel Booking Statistics 2024 reveal that 82% of all travel bookings in 2018 were made online via a mobile app or website, without human interaction. And according to Hilton’s and Ipsos’ Trends Global Survey, 80% of global travelers surveyed feel it’s important to be able to book their trips entirely online, with 86% of Millennials and 83% of Gen Zers leading the charge, so these numbers will likely continue to rise. Hospitality providers should therefore make investing in the online traveler experience a priority.

Travelers Prefer to Book Online

Statista estimates that by 2026, online sales will make up 73% of all revenue in travel and tourism. Already now, 148.3 million travel bookings are completed online every year, and in 2023, a large majority of travelers (72%) said they preferred to book their trips online. It is only a question of time until no one books trips any other way anymore, so it makes sense to focus your efforts on maintaining a positive digital presence. The work you put towards this will not go unrewarded.

Social Media a Popular Research Tool

However, travelers don’t just book online, they do the majority of their research online, too, so there are an abundance of online touchpoints for hospitality providers to capitalize on. (Read more on the potential touchpoints and how to use them to your advantage here.) While 80% of travelers book online, 90% of them do all their holiday research online. In fact, TravelPerk’s Online Travel Booking Statistics & Trends establishes that travelers spend over five hours consuming online travel content to seek inspiration and plan their trip in the 45 days leading up to booking their trip. The greatest source of inspiration for travel destinations is social media, with 75% of travelers saying social media posts inspired their trips to a specific destination in 2023.

Reviews Can Make or Break a Booking

90% of travelers say they are influenced by reviews online, while 72% of new customers won’t book until they have spent time reading other traveler reviews. But is there anything you can do to collect positive reviews, other than providing the best service you can? The answer is yes – 80% of customers who get asked to leave a review will do so, whereas only 22% of people who write an online review will do so without being asked. Moreover, 95% of traveler reviews on average will be positive, so don’t be shy – go and ask for those reviews that will boost your bookings! After all, over half of travelers have experience in writing and submitting one review in the last year, so it’s an easy enough task for them that will make a big difference for you.

Engage with the Power of AI

97.8% of travel executives believe that AI will have an impact over the next 1-5 years in the industry. We at TrustYou think that AI is already changing the travel landscape today. 33% of consumers say they’ve used a virtual travel assistant to help organise and plan their next trip, while 30% of hotel guests spend more when they’ve used a chatbot. A chatbot is therefore an essential feature if you want to invest in the online traveler experience. This is why we have launched chatAI, the ultimate AI-powered chat solution tailored for the hospitality industry that provides answers faster than humanly possible, ensures personalized recommendations for more bookings and lowers operational costs.

Travel Planning and Booking Considered a Chore

A third of families consider the process of searching for the best flights and making online hotel bookings extremely time-consuming; 23% of them didn’t enjoy booking trips. It is a lot of work and effort that many consider a chore and appreciate any help with. By simplifying the process, you can ease that burden for them and secure repeat customers. 63% prefer to read reviews, view pictures and book online all on the same website, so providing it all in one place is a guaranteed way to make travelers happy.

Aggregated Reviews Are the Solution

One way of gathering large quantities of data in one place that makes it easy to consume at a glance is TrustYou’s Meta-Review widget. Travelers like reading reviews to inform their booking decisions, yet they find travel research a chore, so what better way to present them the information they are looking for than using aggregated reviews? Because Meta-Reviews provide an aggregate of all verified reviews, they naturally weed out the extremes to get down to the nuts and bolts of what travelers need to know, making travel planning a piece of cake. Furthermore, it also boosts your SEO, which means more traffic and thus more bookings.

Optimize Your Online Presence

Improving the online traveler experience is a necessity when it comes to future-proofing your business, so hospitality providers should optimize their online presence by making it as user-friendly as possible. Contact us now to find out how we can help you invest in the online traveler experience.

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