- Travelport's 2018 Digital Traveler Survey highlights
continuing demand for digital tools
- Mobile devices remain vital whilst new technologies grow in
prominence
- India retains top position in
this year's global digital traveler country rankings
LANGLEY, United Kingdom,
Nov. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/
-- The world's travelers say mobile devices are as vital for
travel as for other aspects of their life whilst the desire for new
technologies, such as voice search, e-payment and digital room
keys, to simplify and enhance their travel experience is
increasing.
These are among results from the Travelport 2018 Global Digital
Traveler Survey of 16,000 travelers from 25 countries which
include:
- Mobile remains crucial, but travelers want a consolidated
experience:
-
- Almost half of those surveyed have booked and paid for an
entire or part of a trip through their smartphone. China is the global leader, with close to 100%
of survey participants booking and paying for travel through their
mobile phone
- Nine out of ten now have apps to make their life easier when at
their destination with maps, airlines, weather and social media
topping the list of favorites
- On average, travelers use 10-12 apps throughout the searching,
booking and traveling parts of their trip
- The top three most important features identified by leisure
travelers in their travel apps are the ability to search & book
flights (68%), real-time flight alerts throughout their journey
(64%) and being able to see an entire trip itinerary in one place
(67%)
- Only around a fifth of travelers are currently using itinerary
management tools.
- New technologies are continuing to grow in
prominence:
-
- Over half of travelers use voice to search either during
booking or whilst traveling - up 3% on last year globally
- In China and Turkey, over 70% of travelers are already
using voice search. However, in Japan and some parts of Europe, the proportion of travelers using
voice search is less than 40%
- Almost half of all respondents, both leisure (47%) and business
(55%), think the ability to pay using Apple/Android pay (Touch ID)
is important or very important
- Over half of business travelers asked said they wanted to be
able to check in to their hotel via an app, rather than at a
reception desk. 50% also wanted to use a digital room key to unlock
their hotel room door from their phone.
- Travelers want technology to continue to simplify and
enhance the travel experience:
-
- Most travelers asked would happily use biometric scanning to
reduce the need for waiting in security lines, with little
difference between those traveling for business (81%) and those
traveling for leisure (75%). For Nigerian travelers, with one of
the youngest populations in this year's survey, 90% said they were
happy to share personal data to speed through customs and
immigration
- Over two-thirds of travelers think digital boarding passes make
travel so much easier
Gordon Wilson, President and CEO
of Travelport, commented, "We can all see the way technology is
changing almost every aspect of our lives. The travel industry has
always been about new experiences and adopted new technologies
early. This is as true today, with such high demand for voice
search and biometric screening, as it was when I joined this
industry almost thirty years ago.
"At Travelport, we'll always provide choice for customers and
travelers, drive performance and use the intelligence in our
platform to personalize and tailor your travel experience. But
we're also busy innovating, inspiring and experimenting with ways
to use new technologies to make buying and managing travel
continually better. It's great to see confirmation that today's
travelers are already as excited about future technologies as we
are about making them."
The 2018 Global Digital Traveler League Table
The
report also includes the 2018 Digital Traveler League Table, with
India crowned champions for the
second year in a row as the country with the most
digitally-advanced travelers. The standings are based on a
combination of the main indicators of using technology to enhance
the travel experience. For example, India's top position is maintained due to 69%
of the country's travelers using voice search, over 60% wanting
digital room keys and 88% saying they are influenced to travel by
friends on social media.
The countries are ranked as follows (*= new country surveyed in
2018):
Country
|
2018
Rank
(2017
ranking)
|
India
|
1 (1)
|
Indonesia
|
2 (3)
|
Brazil
|
3 (4)
|
China
|
4 (2)
|
Nigeria*
|
5
|
UAE
|
6 (8)
|
Turkey*
|
7
|
Saudi
Arabia
|
8 (5)
|
Colombia
|
9 (9)
|
Mexico
|
9 (6)
|
South
Africa
|
10 (7)
|
Singapore*
|
11
|
Argentina*
|
12
|
South
Korea*
|
13
|
Hong
Kong*
|
14
|
USA
|
15 (11)
|
Russia
|
16 (14)
|
Italy
|
17 (10)
|
Spain
|
18 (12)
|
France
|
19 (13)
|
Australia
|
20 (16)
|
Canada
|
21 (15)
|
UK
|
22 (17)
|
Japan
|
23 (18)
|
Germany
|
24 (19)
|
About the 2018 Global Digital Traveler Survey
Travelport's Global Digital Traveler Research was developed by
the company's market intelligence team and carried out online
through Toluna Research in August
2018. The research covered 25 countries and surveyed people
who had taken at least one round trip flight last year. In total,
there were over 16,000 respondents. The report is available to
download at http://www.travelport.com/gdtr.
Alongside the Global Report, Travelport is publishing separate
detailed country reports.
About Travelport (www.travelport.com)
Travelport (NYSE: TVPT) is the technology company which makes
the experience of buying and managing travel continually
better. It operates a travel commerce platform providing
distribution, technology, payment and other solutions for the
global travel and tourism industry. The company facilitates
travel commerce by connecting the world's leading travel providers
with online and offline travel buyers in a proprietary
business-to-business (B2B) travel marketplace.
Travelport has a leadership position in airline merchandising,
hotel content and distribution, car rental, mobile commerce and B2B
payment solutions. The company also provides critical IT
services to airlines, such as shopping, ticketing, departure
control and other solutions. With net revenue of over
$2.4 billion in 2017, Travelport is
headquartered in Langley, UK, has approximately 4,000 staff and is
represented in 180 countries and territories.
Travelport Media Contacts:
Anna Davies
Global Head of Communications
t: +447787501908
anna.davies@travelport.com
Julian Eccles
VP, PR and Communications
t: +44 (0)7720 409374
julian.eccles@travelport.com