Bookings Boon: All Consumers Want This Holiday Season Is to Travel

Holiday travel is back, but delta, omicron and their Covid-19 variant bros are making platforms work much harder to sell you flights and rent you rooms and cars. According to a survey by Kantar, 70% of Americans have had events with family or close friends over the past 18 months, and nearly three-quarters look forward to reuniting with loved ones this holiday season. And while 58% booked holiday travel plans before November, they did so with some hesitations. If consumers aren’t spending the holiday at their own home (47%), they’ll be at a family member or friend’s home (54%). For 35%, that’s a different plan than normal, with 25% citing government restrictions and 51% saying it’s simply safer. Seeing that Covid-19 is still an uninvited holiday guest, 27% will limit the size of gatherings this year, 25% will take a Covid test beforehand, 27% will wear a mask and 22% will only host events with vaccinated guests. “We are seeing significant pent-up demand for connecting with family and friends but also concerns about safety, and this is impacting how Americans will celebrate this holiday season,” said Jennifer Carrea, managing director, Americas and global health, profiles division at Kantar. “With more Americans intending to gather at home, marketers who depend on holiday sales need to adapt accordingly to better align with this reality.” Sheraton Lets You Send Heartfelt Messages to Loved Ones Traveling During the Holidays Travel platforms took that advice to heart this year, with analytics firm BrandTotal seeing robust paid social media ad campaigns for 11 top platforms between the end of September and the beginning of January. The 790 paid ads BrandTotal scrutinized included spots from Vrbo, Expedia, Airbnb, Booking.com, Kayak, Hotels.com, Hotwire, Priceline, TripAdvisor, Travelocity and Orbitz. Vrbo gets verbose Looking at paid share-of-voice (SOV), or percentage of sponsored impressions, Vrbo came in with a whopping 39%. That far outpaced the 25% for Expedia, 10% for Airbnb and Booking.com or 8% for Kayak. “Vrbo is widely recognized as a prolific digital advertiser in the travel space,” said Alon Leibovich, CEO and co-founder of BrandTotal. “Our data supports what others have seen—they are outspending not just Airbnb on social but all other travel platforms.” Given shifting demand for Vrbo’s core vacation rentals, an uptick in ad spending isn’t unwarranted. According to Vrbo’s own 2022 trend report, the pandemic has steered guests away from dense metropolitan areas toward far afield destinations including Yorktown, Va.; Niagara Falls, N.Y., and Matanuska-Susitna, Alaska. All of the above have seen demand double within the last year, while Cincinnati saw a 125% increase in rental interest. As a result, targeted campaigns now have to find the 43% of parents who are more likely to let their kids skip school for vacation during the pandemic. Vrbo marketing has to adapt to a 40% increase in demand for pet-friendly vacation homes. It’s also targeting travelers who are staying longer: 59% of Vrbo said they are more likely to take a two-week vacation, and 30% are more likely to take a full sabbatical from work. Vrbo Tries Catch Up With Airbnb as Short-Term Rentals Rebound As the past year made evident, Vrbo customers are willing to book those big stays well in advance. For peak travel seasons like summer and the holidays, Vrbo customers have booked two to three months earlier than they normally would. Meanwhile, 60% of customers Vrbo surveyed said they plan to book future vacations earlier than they did in pre-pandemic times. “The past 18 months have been a roller-coaster ride,” said Vrbo spokeswoman Alison Kwong. “Though families have adjusted when and how they plan their vacations, it’s abundantly clear that they are prioritizing spending time away together.” Greetings, fellow travelers Vrbo and its fellow travel platforms not only have to worry about catching these evolving travelers but also finding them at the right time in the right place. According to a survey by credit reporting company Experian, nine out of 10 frequent travelers expected to be traveling again by the end of the year. Among those making plans, 47% planned to fly to their destination and 19% planned to take a rental car. When booking those or their hotel rooms, 42% plan to use price comparison sites, 34% planned to go directly to airline/hotel/car rental sites and 29% planned to use online travel agents. It’s the travel platforms’ firm belief that most of those going online to book are women, with just 29% of ads aimed at men. The core online demographic is also geared toward the 45 or younger demographic. BrandTotal found that Gen Z (18-24) was the target of 49% of all ad impressions, more than the 24% aimed at ages 25-34 and the 14% targeting ages 35-44 combined. “Even with new strains of Covid-19 emerging, Gen Z wants to travel,” Leibovich said. “More than ever, they’re turning to travel platforms for trip inspiration, planning and booking.” It’s why much of online travel’s social ad spending favors platforms that skew younger. The travel platforms focused the majority of their social ad budgets on YouTube (62% of all ad impressions), followed by Facebook (12%), Twitter (11%), Instagram (4%) and LinkedIn (1%). “YouTube is a popular platform among younger adult audiences, including Gen Zs and millennials,” Leibovich added. “Its adoption across these brands reflects that.” Nearly 100% of Hotwire’s social media ad impressions came from YouTube, in fact, with Vrbo (94%) and Kayak (91%) also steering toward YouTube. Travelocity and TripAdvisor had other plans, however. As legacy online travel brands, half of Travelocity’s ad impressions targeted 45-54-year-olds while 69% of TripAdvisor’s ads went after the 55-64-year-old demographic. (Both platforms were less likely to target Gen Z travelers.) As a result, Travelocity poured 100% of its social media campaigns onto Twitter, while 93% of TripAdvisor’s impressions came from Facebook. “Different social platforms are favored by different ages and audiences,” Leibovich noted. “Travelocity and TripAdvisor chose to target older audiences so they avoided YouTube and opted for Twitter and Facebook.”