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Research: According to the Travel Industry Association of America (TIAA)
Summer 2003 Forecast, Americans will take 275.4 million leisure
person-trips (one person traveling 50+ miles) during June, July and August
2003, resulting in an overall increase of 2.5% over last summer. This is good
news after a challenging year in the travel industry.
"The rather dramatic shifts that Americans have made in their travel preferences
in the past twenty months, such as more driving trips, closer-to-home travel
and more rural destinations are still apparent," remarked Dr. Suzanne Cook,
TIAA's senior vice president of research and technology. Air travel will go up
about 1% this summer, primarily due to leisure travelers, according to the TIA
study. Auto travel will continue to be stronger than air, up more than 2%,
which bodes well for B&Bs, where the majority of visitors drive to their
getaways.
Americans expect to stay away an average of 7.9 nights on their longest pleasure
trip, down slightly from last year. While the number of travelers are expected
to rise, TIA's study confirms that Americans will continue to spend less than
the boom years of 2001, with those interviewed stating they'll spend an average
of $1,055 on their longest pleasure trip this summer, stable from summer 2002
but down about 9% from $1,172 in 2001. While some will take one long vacation,
the majority of travelers are expected to continue the trend toward multiple
short getaways.
Other survey highlights note that the longest summer trip will likely be spent
outside the traveler's home state (72%), but more than one-quarter (26%) will
spend their longest summer trip within their home state.
Scenic drives, the beach and visiting friends and relatives prove to be the most
popular summer activities, according to survey respondents. Consumers state
they still favor the all-American road trip, with 70% of travelers saying they
plan to take a drive along a scenic road. Going to a beach or lake is the
second most popular activity (67%), tied with visiting friends and relatives
(67%). Other popular choices that also appeal to inngoers are: visiting
national parks or forests (49%), visiting historic sites (45%), visiting
museums (35%), and fishing (34%).
European online bookings increasing: According to Forrester Research,
"More than 50% of all wired Europeans have researched leisure travel on the
Internet, including 34% of those that just went online. They don't just look:
8% of online consumers also booked leisure travel online in the past quarter.
Consumers cite the same reasons for booking leisure travel online as for buying
other products via the Net, with convenience and price on top.
PhocusWright reports similar findings: "With about one-third of the
European population connected to the Internet, the popularity of low-cost
carriers and the emergence of dynamic packaging, the European online travel
market is finally taking hold. Led by the U.K., France and Germany, travel
e-commerce reached 7.6 billion Euros in Europe in 2002. Gross bookings are
expected to more than triple in three years to reach 27.9 billion Euros by
2005," according to PhoCusWright's European Online Travel Marketplace: Focus on
France.
If you want to reach international travelers, offering online, real-time
reservations is essential, given the costs of international phone calls,
language difficulties, and differing time zones.
Marketing: Joe Sharkey, writing for the
New York Times reported on the words of Henry Harteveldt, principal
travel analyst at Forrester Research: "Email is proving to be 'the most
immediate vehicle you have […]to segment and communicate with customers in a
relevant, compelling and timely manner,' Mr. Harteveldt told industry suppliers
at the Travel Commerce conference in New York in April, 2003."
'The email-engaged traveler,' said Mr. Harteveldt, doesn't much like pop-up ads
or big ad displays that eat up the whole screen. These travelers want marketing
information, not jive. They are, he said, people who book a lot of travel
online and who 'like receiving email' about travel offers. The lesson to
suppliers: 'Email is no longer an acquisition tool; it is a retention tool,
too, to facilitate your relationship with your customer,' he said.
"Travel advertising email messages that are welcomed rather than spurned appear
to be one unanticipated outgrowth of the most profound change in travel-buying
behavior in at least a generation -- the surge in online travel booking, which
got traction a few years ago and now represents about one of every four
domestic travel reservations. Last year, out of a total of $73.2 billion spent
on e-commerce, online consumer travel bookings alone -- the vast majority of
that by leisure travelers -- accounted for $30.2 billion, up 56.3 percent from
the previous year, said Graham Mudd, an analyst at ComScore Networks."
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