Expedia says nearly 70% of customers using a mobile device to book one of its travel product are looking to travel within the next 24 hours.
The online travel agency has examined the travel habits of more than 2,000 US adults to work out how they are using their mobile devices as primary methods to book air tickets, hotels, car hire and other products.
With six out of ten adults owning a smartphone or tablet device, according to its study, Expedia has issued the results of the poll to coincide with the launch of a new service where customers using a mobile will get exclusive rates on some products.
But it is what customers are doing with their various devices that will interest the wider industry, with significant differences in the type of products featuring in the spontaneous purchase of travellers.
Almost 68% of travellers booking a room night on a mobile device were doing so to stay within the next 24 hours, as opposed to just 17% for those buying air tickets.
What type of hotels are these late-bookers buying?
The study found four out of ten mobile users are booking two star properties, with 37% opting for three star, 13% on four star and a lowly 2% for five star.
And when?
Friday (16.3%) and Saturday (16.5%) are the most popular days for mobile bookings, but the other five days in the week share a reasonably equal spread, ranging from the lowest (12.9%) on Monday to highest (14.2%) on Wednesday.
What other nuggets of information has Expedia managed to glean from the study and its own analysis of internal booking trends of US customers?
- Snap-happy travellers (a massive 86%) are turning to their mobile devices to record their trips.
- 54% share their pictures on Facebook during a trip. Just 9% do so on Twitter, 6% on Instagram.
- Nine out of the ten most popular destinations for mobile bookings are in the US, with only the French capital Paris featuring outside of the country. Other cities include New York, Orlando, Los Angeles, Las Vegas and San Francisco.
NB: Click mobile image via Shutterstock.
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About Kevin May
Kevin – I think you need to be careful when quoting these statistics. The booking data is for those consumers using the Expedia Mobile App… not for all consumers using mobile to shop for hotels. The missing data here is mobile websites (not to mention those that use the app but don’t book on it!) and the role they play in the shopping process.
Readers should not interpret these stats that the sole use of a mobile phone for the majority of consumers (70%) is to book a hotel within 24 hours but rather 70% of those that have downloaded an Expedia mobile app on their phone and use that app to book hotel accommodations reserve for a stay within 24 hours of the booking time. This is a big difference… and presumably a much smaller subset of consumers than those who use their mobile device to shop, research and/or purchase hotel accommodations.
How consumers use mobile apps varies from how they use mobile websites. An app is typically all about booking and the focus of your app should be making a reservation very easy. Consumers do other things on a mobile website – check photos, reviews, maps, local area attractions, etc. These entire actions help move the consumer through the buying cycle with an eventual purchase – be that through the Expedia App, on the mobile website, on the standard website, through the phone, etc. The shopping journey is complex and not all consumers shop and buy the same way. Attributing the success of a proprietary mobile app to a booking is too simple a way to better understand how to get consumers to book your hotel more often… when will the industry look beyond last click attribution and start using multi-touch attribution to marketing expenditures?
I agree with John. We really have to look at the validity of statistics from the major OTAs such as hotels.com, expedia, etc.. It is easy to askew the statistics so they can be misinterrpted.
John’s points about the booking funnel are well taken, but I would argue that it is less important than you would think for these customers. 80% of the 24-hour window customers are staying in two or three star hotels. They’re looking for distressed inventory in lower-end properties. Where they stay is an afterthought compared to everything else planned for the trip.
My take-away is that booking on apps is similar to activity on nearly all other travel apps I’ve seen, get in and get out as quickly as possible. If that’s what the customers want to do on apps, then optimize for that and you’re in good shape. Just look at Hotel Tonight.
Totally agree with you Patrick – those people who book on Apps (the vast majority) just want to get in and out as quickly as possible so making it easy for them to book is paramount. The reason they choose a lower end property is probably less that they are booking within 24 hours and more that their length of stay is shorter and the need for amenities is less i.e. an overnite stay requires fewer facilities and amenities than does a longer stay.
But my real point is that from a consumers view mobile is much more than using an App to book a hotel within 24 hours for a short stay at a low end property and the headline and plot of this story suggests that is the role of mobile. A fully thought out mobile strategy will be based on a solid understanding of how consumers use mobile Apps and mobile websites and the role they play in the purchase path and designed to take advantage of this. I just wouldn’t put all my eggs in the App basket for people booking in a 24 hour window.