80% of travelers can envision themselves booking a spur-of-the moment getaway. If planning a trip comes down to seconds, is your travel business prepared to compete?
More travelers and more destinations
Travel is back, bigger and with more varieties than ever. Instagram and TikTok are influencing occasion travel to specific destinations to see concerts, sporting events or to stargaze an eclipse on the top of a mountain. There are more solo travelers than ever, and a whole new genre of dupe travel that suggests lesser-known, but similar destinations to well-worn, overpriced ones. Think Buenos Aires duping for Paris; or Paros instead of Santorini.
But one trend that impacts nearly all travel marketers is the increase in spontaneity, shorter booking windows and the demand for customization.
The rise of last-minute travel
According to Booking.com, 52% of travelers plan to book a getaway without knowing the end destination. There’s an uptick in surprise destination sites like Pack Up & Go and Competitours that offer complete itineraries where none of the details are provided in advance. Additionally, Booking.com reports that 69% of travelers are opting for looser itineraries this year rather than strictly scheduled trips.
Seamless transactions remain key
In Travelperk’s Trends Global Survey, 80% of global travelers surveyed feel it’s important to be able to book their trips entirely online, and 76% of global travelers said they look for travel apps that reduce the friction and stress of travel. Of those that book travel online, 53% cited it’s because of the speed at which they can plan their trip. 47% said it’s easier to compare prices, and 42% said it’s better to find cheaper deals.
Today’s travel professionals and online travel agencies (OTAs) are expected to appeal to many different types of traveler all at once. This means your brand needs insight on who the customer is, how to reach them, and what to offer in a matter of minutes. You need the right data and the right technology to build and scale retargeting campaigns.
Knowing who your customer is
Up to 95% of a brand’s digital traffic can be anonymous.
Despite a site visitor making all arrangements except for clicking “purchase now,” a travel brand has no way of connecting with this potential customer if the person has not shared any of their data with a brand. The user remains an “unknown” and the person’s identity cannot be connected to a profile or device.
Identity resolution transforms anonymous online traffic into known, actionable data. Marketers are sometimes able to recognize that a device has visited a brand website or app, but can’t connect that device to a real person. It’s simply a device that’s previously visited that website or app.
Identity resolution partners like Wunderkind are in the business of understanding what that individual and their devices are doing across potentially thousands of other websites. This means they have a much richer data set on an individual and their devices, bringing more context to the shopper’s wants and needs.
Wunderkind’s Identity Network, coupled with expansive proprietary data sets and an advanced AI engine, helps travel and hospitality brands capture first-party data at scale and deliver personalized triggered messaging across channels that boosts revenue, guaranteed.
Connecting and converting more of your site traffic
Wunderkind offers travel brands a more agile way to build revenue. We super boost your owned channels and anchor our performance in data, AI and identity. Wunderkind typically collects 3x the amount of first party data versus our competitors, cites Wunderkind’s Chief Revenue Officer, Richard Jones.
“Wunderkind is the preferred choice for travel and hospitality brands thanks to our exceptional data assets feeding our AI engine. These tools deliver unrivaled performance and a guaranteed lift in revenue.” says Jones. “With trillions of eCommerce interactions observed per year, almost a billion opted-in consumer profiles, and the Wunderkind Identity Network recognizing over 9 billion devices, our data serves as the cornerstone of our success.”
Data + AI = Revenue
Thanks to artificial intelligence, automation and increasingly sophisticated data collection strategies, marketers can craft millions of personalized messages. More personalization means better customer journeys and more profitable outcomes.
A leading global car rental brand faced a challenge in boosting website growth, optimizing email capture, and addressing reservation abandonment. Wunderkind worked with the brand to strengthen their acquisition and retention strategies.They saw a 14x in triggered email performance which led to an attributable 4.6% increase in digital revenue.
Magnus Gustafsson, VP, E-Commerce and Digital Marketing at premium epicurean brand, D’Artagnan, credits Wunderkind’s ability to capture customers with personalized messaging. He cites longer buying cycles in the premium food industry. “We know we need to be there to gently remind them of the experience that they had, and what they looked at. Wunderkind has given us a proper platform and toolbox to be in front of those customers at the right time and with the right message. And we have seen that open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates through all of these modules have been far greater than we originally thought when we started the partnership.”
Putting the power of performance marketing to work
The travel industry is witnessing a significant shift towards spontaneity, shorter booking windows, and personalized experiences.
As travelers continue to seek unique and tailored itineraries, the ability to connect with site visitors in real-time will become more critical than ever. Travel and hospitality brands that cultivate personalized relationships will be at the forefront of driving repeat bookings and brand loyalty.
To stay competitive, all marketers must embrace technologies that enable seamless transactions, identity resolution, and first-party collection data strategies. Wunderkind is leading the way by providing solutions that supercharge revenue streams and enhance customer engagement.
Want to learn more about how Wunderkind can increase your revenue and how we can guarantee results? Contact us and learn more about what travel marketers can expect this year with The Power of Performance Marketing in Travel & Hospitality in 2024.
