Phocuswright looks at online travel trends for 2015

Increased online bookings, the growing influence of companies outside the travel industry and the ever-expanding ‘sharing’ economy will impact the continued growth of the global travel industry in 2015, according to travel research organization Phocuswright.

Those findings were part of a recent presentation by the organization titled ‘The Year Ahead in Digital Travel,’ which outlined several key messages for the coming year.

Among those were the following projections:

- The global travel market will grow to $1.3 trillion U.S. this year, with North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific leading the way in total bookings. Of those, online bookings (led by those same three markets, along with massive growth in Eastern Europe and the Middle East) are expected to increase by 10 per cent to represent $400 billion of that total.

- As evidenced by Expedia’s recent purchase of Travelocity and Orbitz, online travel agencies are going through a period of diverse change fuelled by acquisition, a trend that’s expected to continue into the future.

- Companies such as Apple, Google, TripAdvisor and China’s Alibaba e-commerce site could make a significant impact on the industry should they choose to get into selling travel, through what Phocuswright described as these brands’ potential to introduce “value creation beyond traditional products and services.” That value could include aspects such as payment, one-stop shopping and the overall customer experience.

- Travel apps represent only one per cent of smartphone use, compared to social media at 30 per cent.

- Online hotel bookings continue to rise globally, with 36 per cent of U.S. bookings made this way. While online hotel bookings in the U.S. was more or less evenly divided between OTAs and hotel websites, OTAs led online bookings in Europe and Asia-Pacific at 71 per cent and 69 per cent respectively.

- With the advent of the ‘sharing economy,’ services such as Airbnb have seen massive growth, with more than 30 million guests using the service to rent privately-owned accommodations. However, as travellers grow more discerning, such business models will have to consider the conveniences and services offered by traditional hotels to remain competitive.

- The rise of ‘bleisure travel’ has seen 64 per cent of business travellers tack on a leisure extension to their trips, usually averaging four days. Sixty per cent of those travellers were also joined by a spouse, family member or friend as a travel companion.

- At 25 per cent of the U.S. population alone (representing 80 million consumers), the spending power of millennial travellers continues to increase.

- Ultimately, the brands providing the best customer experience will see the most repeat clients, requiring companies to make every interaction count and focus on ease-of-use and customer accessibility over price.