From the just-released 2016 Europe Travel Trends Report by Sojern, there are several points that stand out for U.S. travel suppliers seeking to tap into the overseas source market that comprises Europe (including the UK):
First, more than 90 percent of Europeans take their holidays within Europe.
Second, trip duration varies—from a low of 5.4 days for travelers from Greece to nearly 9 days for Dutch travelers.
Third, the average lead time for planning a trip is much larger for Europeans than it is for U.S. travelers—73 days, with Germans taking another week beyond that.
Following is more information on these three points from Sojern’s Trends report, which looked at more than one billion travel intent signals from January 2015 through June 2016 in order to better understand the behavior of European travelers.
- The vast majority (93 percent) of European travel occurs intra-regionally. Yet, political and economic factors, as well as changing tastes of Europeans all impact how they plan travel. For example, Sojern points out, even with the UK’s “Brexit” vote result on 23 June and the falling value of the pound, there has not been a drastic change in UK outbound travel intent. However, emerging markets, like Iceland and their creative stopover campaigns, are showing an increase in European travelers. Looking a little more closely at the table below, one will see that the USA is the only long-haul overseas destination that appears.
Top Searched Destinations
For Europe Travelers
2015 to 2016
Source: Sojern 2016 Europe Travel Trends Report
- Regarding trip duration searched by country, European travelers are highly diverse, and individual countries demonstrate significant variability in their travel planning behavior. For example, people in Greece search for travel lasting an average of 5.4 days. In the Netherlands, travel planners look for longer-than-average trips, at just over a week, 8.7 days. Sojern suggests that hotel marketers might consider tailoring upsell offers around trip duration propensity by country—a “6th night free” deal might go further when targeted to Greek travelers vs. those coming from the Netherlands.
Average Trip Duration in Days
For European Travelers
2015 to 2016
Source: Sojern 2016 Europe Travel Trends Report
- Lead times vary greatly. For examples, lead times in Germany and France differ by nearly two weeks. Travelers from Germany are one of Europe’s earliest travel planners with a lead time of 80 days. France has a shorter pre-travel planning time of 67 days. Sojern says that these differences demonstrate that marketers looking to reach European travelers with the right message at the right time should work with data-driven partners who can accurately target based on planning behaviors compared with the actual date of travel.
Average Lead Time in Days
For European Travelers
2015 to 2016
Source: Sojern 2016 Europe Travel Trends Report
