Nearly 30 Percent Of UK Travel Searchers Use Mobile Exclusively

Nielsen, xAd and Telmetrics have released new data from their expansive “Mobile Path to Purchase” study (registration req’d) of US and UK mobile consumer behavior. This particular set of data are focused on mobile behavior in the travel vertical in the UK (infographic).

As you might imagine, the data show increasing reliance by UK consumers on mobile for travel research and the growing importance of mobile in the travel-purchase process.

In particular, 28 percent of people in the UK study used mobile devices for travel research — exclusively. This compares with US data from the broader study that found an average of 46 percent of respondents relied only on smartphones or tablets in conducting research across a range of verticals.

Roughly a third of travel-related purchases in the study ultimately occurred on smartphones or tablets. Just over 80 percent of tablet users (83 percent) conducted their research at home, predominantly in the early evening. Nearly half (46 percent) of smartphone-based travel research also took place at home.

Source: Nielsen, xAd, Telmetrics Mobile Path to Purchase study 2013

There was a much longer lead time to purchase among tablet users, with 60 percent reporting that they planned to make a purchase a month or more thereafter. About 30 percent of respondents in the study said they needed to make a purchase that day. Most of the “need it now” users are on smartphones. These findings have obvious implications for brand vs. direct response campaigns.

Top interests and considerations in mobile travel research were price information, deals, reviews and location-related lookups.

UK mobile travel users said that optimized mobile sites were the most important consideration for them. That was followed by reviews.

The desire for mobile optimized sites makes lots of sense in view of the fact that this population relied much more heavily on the mobile Web than apps. The study found that 46 percent of respondents used the mobile Web for travel research. Only 10 percent relied on apps, which is a smaller percentage than the comparable US finding from last year where apps were more heavily penetrated.

A third (33 percent) of these UK respondents had specific travel brands in mind when conducting their research. Indeed, these UK travelers were twice as likely to use branded websites and apps than mobile users in other categories. However, the flip side is that a majority did not have a brand in mind and were thus open to influence.

Tablet users were more likely to convert or book on their devices than smartphone users. Overall, 53 percent of tablet users said they made a travel purchase compared to 41 percent of smartphone users. Among them, 38 percent of tablet users made purchases on their devices vs. 23 percent of smartphone users.