Placeable – Missed Connection: Why National Brands Must Adapt To Changing Traveler Behavior
After a long and brutal winter, summer travel season has finally arrived—and this year an incredible 88 percent of Americans plan to take a vacation.1 While the longing for fun and relaxation in the sun endures, the continuing shift to mobile and digital is having a profound effect on consumers’ travel behavior.
Long gone are the days of glossy travel guides and oversized (un)foldable maps—and gone, too, are the days of printing out directions and information in advance. Today’s traveler is more likely to use a smartphone or tablet to search for shops, restaurants and activities once they reach their destination. This relatively recent change in behavior has important implications for national brands seeking to capture the business of vacationing spenders.
In the latest installment of Placeable’s ongoing research series, we surveyed 1,000 consumers to learn more about how they research and find businesses before and during their vacations.
KEY FINDINGS
• Discovery: Search engines rule—more than four in five consumers use them for
research when planning a vacation.
• Proximity: A nearby location trumps brand for many types of purchases on vacation.
• Brand Affinity: For essential purchases, travelers tend to search for specific brands, and for other purchases they use broader category searches.
• Mobile: Vacationers do much of their online research once they reach their destinations.
• Loyalty: Consumers aren’t loyal to a particular brand if presented a better offer or if they
have trouble finding a location.
• Trust: Difficulty finding a store or restaurant location on vacation negatively affects consumers’ impression of a brand even once they return home.