Sojern and FASTBOOKING Reveal Complex Travel Path to Purchase Can Encompass Up to 735 Touchpoints

New whitepaper explores the latest trends shaping how hoteliers drive direct bookings

SINGAPORE - Media OutReach - 19 October, 2017 - Sojern, travel's direct demand engine, and FASTBOOKING, leading-edge e-commerce solutions specialist for independent hotels and regional chains, today announces the release of its whitepaper, "State of the Hotel Industry in Asia Pacific". This whitepaper aims to help hoteliers effectively engage with travellers across channels and devices to drive direct bookings and increase RevPAR.

"The modern traveller's path to purchase has grown in complexity as consumers jump across websites and devices, conducting an abundance of research. For marketers, understanding a traveller's planning and booking behaviours is essential to successfully engage them throughout their path to purchase to ensure they book direct," comments Chris Blane, VP of Sojern's Global Direct Sales and Account Management. "The best marketing starts with great data,and that culminates in a multi-channel strategy that speaks to the right travellers, at the right time, with the right message."

APAC Travellers Lead The Way With Mobile Searches

Asia-Pacific travellers planning inter-regional trips perform 47% of their searches on mobile devices over the weekend, compared with only 15% for American travellers. We see this drop to 36% for APAC travellers on a Tuesday, still over three times higher than American travellers on the same day. Brands who aim to reach and convert these mobile-savvy travellers need to develop media plans that are truly cross-device.  

Expect the Unexpected

Given that flights to APAC are considered long-haul for US travellers, it would be easy for marketers to assume the average traveller would have a long lead time when booking a flight. But, research shows this is not always the case. Marketers who shape their strategies around this assumption would miss the 18% of US travellers who booked their trip to APAC between 0 and 7 days ahead of their departure date.  

Travellers Are Savvier Than Ever and Brands Need to Keep Up

Travellers have more information at their fingertips than ever before. In fact, when we looked closer at one anonymous path to purchase we see that over the course of 213 days of planning, this traveller had 735 touchpoints. Another anonymous path to purchase showed that out of a total of 162 travel touchpoints, 127 of these alone are for a hotel booking. Keeping your hotel brand top of mind for this traveller is key to getting that booking.

Stay Top of Mind with the Right Channel

The hospitality industry is continually being challenged with the evolvement of consumers digital habits. To stay in the game, a holistic digital marketing strategy which encompasses several channels to complement different stages of the path to purchase is paramount. Display advertising is one effective channel, but SEM and Metasearch websites are also vital in ensuring your brand remains top of mind when it comes time for travellers to book.

"It may seem complicated, however, establishing and executing a suitable digital marketing strategy is something FASTBOOKING undertakes on a daily basis. Coupled with the easy to understand metasearch and SEM guides shared in the report, we are reachable to partner with hotels to execute the digital marketing strategy to increase their profitability through direct bookings," Pierre-Charles Grob, Managing Director, Asia expressed.

To learn more about our how best to engage with travellers and drive direct bookings, please download the report.

Notes to Editors:

Members of the press are welcome to request interviews with FASTBOOKING or Sojern to gather more information.

About Sojern

Sojern is travel's direct demand engine, delivering $10B in direct bookings for thousands of brands -- from global enterprises to boutique operators -- across industries including hotel, airline, cruise, transportation, tourism and more. Specializing in traveler path-to-purchase data for over a decade, Sojern activates multi-channel branding and performance solutions by combining billions of search and booking intent signals with proprietary data science methods to analyze the world's travelers in real-time. Recognized on the Top Company Cultures list by Entrepreneur Magazine, Sojern is headquartered in San Francisco, with teams based in Dubai, Dublin, Hong Kong, London, Mexico City, New York, Omaha, Paris, Singapore, and Sydney. For more information, visit www.sojern.com.