Navigating the travel industry; what brands need to do to succeed in today’s highly competitive marketplace

Criteo Travel Think Tank

The travel sector is one of the most difficult industries for any company to compete in.  It has one of the largest pools of customers online, but these users lack loyalty, ‘brand-hop’ and tend to go for price-based bookings.  The online customer journey has, until recently, been impossible to track as potential purchasers jump from mobile, to laptop, to desktop and to tablet. This makes it more difficult than ever to identify and convert customers.

So how do travel brands deal with this?  What are they doing to attract customers? And more importantly, convert lookers to bookers?  

That is exactly what we wanted to find out in Criteo’s first Travel Think Tank, held in London recently. 

The theme was “It’s about the journey, not the destination: the science behind predicting a traveller’s steps”. Criteo’s Daniele Beccari and Jon Buss were joined byTravel Republic, TUI, Travelzoo, and Hilton as well as journalists from The Drum, Marketing Week, tnooz, Mobile Marketing Magazine and TravelMole to debate the challenges currently facing the travel industry.

Led by Paul Papadimitriou, a leading thinker, strategist and consultant on mobile, online and all areas of innovation and technology, the debate focused on four key areas, privacy, cross-device, industry-drivers and attribution.  The discussion was captured by visual minutes and after a lively

90-minute debate, the group came to the following four conclusions:

1. The travel industry is now more competitive than ever.  The recent acquisitions and mergers have reduced the number of players but this makes the ‘fight’ for customers even more fierce.
2. To date, cross-device measurement has been taken on faith or ‘gut-feel’.  This must change.  Travel companies need to have a clear picture of the whole customer journey to succeed.
3. Attribution remains a headache for the travel industry.   Savvy companies are those that continually monitor their advertising activity and adjust their spend accordingly.
4. Transparency and control are the two best ways of tackling the privacy issue.  Customers like to be able to opt out, if they want, and to fully understand what brands are doing with their data.

A full report on the Travel Think Tank will be available later this month that will outline how our travel experts are dealing with the ever-changing face of the travel industry. It will give hints and tips on how to attract customers and will share sound advice on how to convert ‘lookers to bookers.  Watch this space for more information.

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Categories: Inside Criteo