SAN FRANCISCO, October 29, 2015 — Sojern, the world’s leading performance marketing platform for travel brands, today released its Q3 Global Travel Insights report based on the rigorous analysis of more than a billion traveler intent data points across the globe.
Q3 2015 Global Travel Trends: The Bird’s Eye View
September was the most popular month for booking trips, with 37 percent of all the quarter’s booking taking place that month. Globally, the most searched destinations during the third quarter of the year were: the United States, Spain, the United Kingdom, Italy, France, Germany, Turkey, Thailand, Portugal and Russia. Thailand re-entered the list after a quarter’s hiatus, replacing Greece.
On Labor Day, More US Travelers Sought the Sun, for Longer Breaks
We compared Labor Day travel trends with Independence Day trends in the US and found slightly different search behaviors among American travelers: the July holiday saw most searching for trips to New York, while the September holiday moved more travelers to seek the sun in Miami. There were disparities in the length of trips searched for, as well: only 25 percent of Americans looked to travel six or more days around Independence Day vs. a whopping 47 percent on Labor Day. That may have been affected by the fact that the 4th of July fell on a Saturday this year.
Search Lead Times Are Shrinking Rapidly in Europe and North America
From the beginning of the year through the end of September, in North America and Europe, increasingly more travelers searched for tickets seven days or less from the departure date and significantly fewer travelers searched for tickets sixty days or more before the departure date – 10 percent fewer travelers in North America and 19 percent in Europe (Q1 compared to Q3). These fluctuations are in line with the seasonal trends: in Q1 travel planning is in full swing for the summer break, while in Q2 and Q3 travelers look for destinations closer to home and book tickets closer to the departure date. In Latin America, search lead times remain largely stable quarter on quarter.
Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday: What to Expect This Year
This Thanksgiving, the most expensive airports to fly out of are New York’s JFK and San Francisco’s International airport, followed by Los Angeles and Philadelphia. At the end of the spectrum, flying out of Atlanta may be the most affordable scenario of all, followed by Fort Lauderdale and Washington D.C.’s Reagan National (DCA).
Last year Cyber Monday triggered a fourfold increase in worldwide flight bookings. Americans responded the most dramatically, with an increase of 96 percent in flight bookings compared to Thanksgiving, but Europeans also saw a 32% increase in flight bookings on Cyber Monday. For a little perspective, in 2013, Sojern data indicated that US flight bookings increased by 50 percent over average Mondays in November. Consumers will continue to be on the hunt for travel deals this year, and, since Cyber Monday falls on the last day of November, prepare to see November bookings skyrocket.
2015 Holiday Season Predictions
This holiday season, North American travelers are looking to take slightly more long trips than last year: 38 percent are searching for trips of eight days or more compared to 34 percent last year. For now, only 52 percent of North American early bookers are looking to travel alone this holiday season compared to 74 percent of all bookers last year.
December 19 is shaping up to be the most popular date to travel across Latin America, Europe and Asia-Pacific and the second most popular date to travel in North America, after December 23. The top destinations for the 2015 Holiday season are: Singapore for Asia-Pacific travelers, Bangkok for Europeans, Madrid for Latin Americans and, for North Americans, New York.
In Latin America, Bogota ranks 2nd for overall destinations and is the top origination for holiday travel, possibly due to Colombia’s steady economic rise and to changing perceptions of the safety of travel to the country. Download the full Global Travel Insights report and infographic.
For more information, please visit sojern.com.
About Sojern
Sojern is travel’s leading data-driven performance marketing engine. Through its Sojern Traveler Platform and billions of traveler intent signals across online and mobile channels, Sojern puts more heads in beds and travelers in town for its clients worldwide. Currently one of the fastest growing travel tech companies, Sojern works with top travel brands and independent hotels in North America, Latin America, Europe, MEA and APAC. The company is headquartered in San Francisco, with key offices in Dubai, London, New York, Omaha and Singapore. For more information, please visit sojern.com.
