expedia travel report

Travel Recovery Trend Report

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In our last Travel Recovery Trend Report, covering the second quarter of 2021, we highlighted several positive signs for the industry. As we moved into Q3, however, concerns around the Delta variant and renewed restrictions led many travelers to reevaluate. Still, the industry saw positive progress in many areas. This latest installment tracks this momentum using our first-party Expedia Group traveler data and custom research, presented at both a global and regional level. Travel marketers can use these latest insights to inspire travelers and continue their road to recovery.

The Travel Industry Is Starting to Recover

More than a year after COVID-19 shutdowns and restrictions started impacting the travel industry globally, we are seeing positive shifts - especially in places where vaccines are rolling out more broadly. People are eager to travel again, and traveler optimism is on the rise. We are tracking our first-party Expedia Group traveler data and custom research, and compiled a new quarterly Travel Recovery Trend Report with the latest global and regional insights to help inform travel marketers on the road to recover and rebuild.

Download the report to see the trends rising to the top in Q1 2021, including how:

• Vaccine rollouts are spurring the return of travel
• Search windows are short as travelers make quick plans
• Longer trips for vacation rental stays
• Domestic travel leads, with international on the horizon
• Health & hygiene expectations continue to evolve

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Why Expedia Group?

Millions of travelers visit Expedia Group sites every day to shop for their travel needs. We use multiple factors, including traveler search criteria and past booking behavior, to deliver optimal property search results that provide travelers with the most relevant properties and deals every time they search. Understanding the factors that influence your display can help you optimize your visibility and boost the bookings generated for your property.

Reach a global audience

Your property is marketed on over 200 travel booking sites such as Expedia, Hotels.com, Egencia and more; in more than 75 countries and 35 languages; which attract 75M monthly flight shoppers.

Attract diverse travelers to your door

Our dynamic portfolio of brands helps you generate bookings through a wide range of channels including corporate, mobile, packages (e.g. flight + hotel) and more.

Maximize your revenue potential

Our easy-to-use tools and world class sales and support teams help you optimize your strategy to fill your rooms and increase revenue.

Thank you for registering for our webinar – What travelers want in 2021.

You will receive an email confirmation shortly.  We’ll see you there!

Find out where your travellers are coming from

Are you targeting the right market? Find out where your travellers are coming from, how long they're staying and who is spending the most.

Find out how you should be pricing your rooms

Your market report can help you plan your revenue management strategy. Compare your pricing to your competitive set and find out which weeks are your most popular.

Expedia YouTube Channel Trailer

Learn more about booking behaviors.

Find out how your travellers are booking their trips, and whether packages and promotions can help boost your revenues.

Look Inside

Manage your business with Expedia Group anytime, anywhere.

Download the Partner Central app and get quick, easy access to the tools and data you need.

What our partners are saying

Value Add Promotions are a great way to encourage a guest to book with us, while keeping our average daily rate strong.

Accelerator affords us the ability to keep up with the larger chain hotels who have more robust advertising budgets to gain market share and exposure.

The Promotions tool in Partner Central helped us increase room nights by 450% in 2016. We’ve never seen almost instantaneous growth through any other online supplier.

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Explore > Features > Future of travel report

Future of travel report

We love to study travelers and their behavior. We have the lucky jobs of helping millions of travelers all around the world find their perfect trip and, with our corporate travel brand Egencia , a lot of times, those trips are for business travel.  One of the things that fascinates us most these days is the role of millennials in shaping travelers. Increasingly, they will have more and more decision-making power within organizations to shape travel policy and, as their careers progress, they’ll have more power to shape leisure travel as well. So we set out to study how millennial travels differ from their older counterparts with our Future of Travel study . The study was conducted across five continents, asking 8,535 employed adults in 24 countries about how they conduct business and leisure travel – their likes, dislikes, preferences, and pet peeves. The study aims to discover how millennials will impact the travel landscape as they gain decision-making power at work and purchase power in their personal lives.

Sharp differences emerged in the Future of Travel analysis, particularly the differing value that younger travelers place on mobile and on loyalty. Millennials are far likelier to embrace loyalty programs while en route; half of millennials find loyalty programs important when booking flights (48%) or hotels (51%), versus only three in ten of travelers aged 46-65 (31% & 30% respectively). Mobile and other form factors are clearly important to the future of travel. In fact, for booking business travel, 32% of those 30 and under report using a smartphone and 20% report booking on a tablet. That’s compared to just 12% for smartphone and 9% for tablet for those over 45. And 18-30 year-olds are far likelier than 46-65 year-olds to use mobile devices to enhance their travel experience.  

The study found that younger travelers were freer with their company’s money when traveling.  Globally, business travelers aged 18-30 more frequently report that they will spend more of their company’s money on high-end meals (42%) than they would their own money compared to those aged 46-65 (26%). Millennials are also fans of room service: 37% would spend more of their company’s money on room service, versus only 21% of 46-65 year-olds. Younger Americans (34 and under) are slightly more likely to spend company money on a flight upgrade to business- or first-class than are their older peers (35 and older). They are also slightly more likely to spend company money on high-end meals, room service, and wine/alcohol, although not significant.

Millennials have more opportunities to order room service than any other age demographic, because they travel slightly more on business.  Worldwide, 30-and-unders report traveling 4.7 times per year on business, versus 3.6 times per year among 30-45 year-olds, and 4.2 times per year among 46-65 year-olds. Millennials take more leisure trips as well, at 4.2 trips a year, versus 2.9 for 31-45 year-olds and 3.2 for 46-65 year-olds.

Among Americans, 45% of respondents aged 34 and younger claim to work fewer hours when they travel than they do at the office, versus 24% of Americans aged 35 and older. American and Canadian millennials travel more frequently of any age group across any nation, reporting that they take a full 7.8 leisure trips per year. On the contrary, European respondents aged 31-45 take 2.7 leisure trips per year.

On the whole, the study found that:

• Millennials are more comfortable mixing business with pleasure. They are more likely to extend a business trip into a personal vacation than older employees are. 62% of 18-30 year olds have done so, vs. 51% of 31-45 year olds and 37% of 46-65 year olds. Younger Americans and Canadians are more likely to do this (70%), than those age 31-45 (50%) or 46+ (31%).

39% of all business travelers report that they work more hours when they travel than they do at the office. Europeans (45%) are more likely than Asia-Pacific (35%) and North American (32%) travelers to say that they work more hours than normal when traveling.

• Millennials are also more likely to voice their displeasure. 18-30 year old business travelers are likeliest to post a negative review online, as it relates to their experience with hotels, restaurants, flights, public transportation, taxis, and rental cars. Negative reviews are still relatively rare, however; 67% of travelers worldwide have never done so. Reviews themselves are considered highly important for both business and leisure travel, particularly among Millennials as eight in ten (77% and 82% respectively) 18-30 year olds worldwide consider travel reviews to be “very important” or “somewhat important.” This sentiment holds true across a majority of all age groups and regions.
• Americans under the age of 34 more frequently posted negative reviews of hotels (26%) within the last year, versus 14% of their older peers. Hotels received the most negative reviews among American business travelers, narrowly edging out restaurants. 66% of older Americans would not expect a response from the business they had negatively reviewed online, a skepticism shared by 65% of their younger peers.
• Mobile devices are nearing ubiquity for business travelers across all regions and all demographics , but more so for millennials than any other group, unsurprisingly. 75% of travelers surveyed worldwide use smartphones and tablets for both personal and business reasons when traveling.
• Location, location, location. Location matters over everything when business travelers book hotels, with travelers most frequently citing it as the most important feature (53%). The price of the hotel room (44%) narrowly edged out travel time to the city in question (42%) as next most important feature. Airfare price, at 36%, ranked fourth. In-flight Wi-Fi was not a high priority among business travelers worldwide, though in every region, the importance of in-flight Wi-Fi declines as travelers aged.
• For leisure travelers, hotel room price was among the top three most important features (63%).  Hotel location and airfare price were tied, at 50%. On-board Wi-Fi was less important for leisure travelers than for business travelers, across all age groups and regions.
• When traveling on business, 83% of respondents worldwide feel that they should be personally entitled to travel reward points. Globally, workers under the age of 45 surveyed tend to feel more entitled to their points than older employees.
• A majority (68%) of employees are compensated for their business trips on nights and weekends, either with extra money or with additional compensation days. Across all regions surveyed, 18-30 year olds are more likely to be compensated with either money or added vacation time (78%).
• A majority of employees (67%) do tend to save some type of personal information online to streamline the booking process, however, one-third (33%) still prefer not to save any personal data online. Of the majority of respondents who save personal information online, millennial employees tend to be more comfortable doing so than their older counterparts.

** Survey Methodology

This Expedia survey was conducted online from August 20, 2013 to September 12, 2013 across Europe, North America, South America, and Asia Pacific by Harris Interactive among 8,535 respondents over the age of 18. In order to qualify to take the full survey, respondents had to be employed full-time, part-time, or self-employed. For complete survey methodology, including weighting variables, please contact  [email protected] . 

The survey examined business and leisure travel attitudes and behaviors among the residents of Europe (United Kingdom, Denmark, France, Austria, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands and Norway), Asia Pacific (India, Japan, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Thailand, Singapore, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand), North America (United States, Canada, and Mexico), and Brazil.

To download this release, click here:

Press release (DOC)

Future of Travel Infographic (JPG)

Future of Travel Infographic (PDF)

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The sun is shining and the beaches are calling.

And since searches for summer trips for flights and lodging are up, the countdown to locking in on those summer travel plans with some savings is approaching, according to Expedia.com.

So here's how:

Expedia , the full-service travel brand company, reveals how to save on summer airfare with tips from its Summer Travel Outlook , complete with data compiled from searches of peak travel times from 2023.  

"The sweet spot for booking your summer trip is right around the corner, but there's still a bit of time to figure out your vacation plans and lock in those flights at a great rate," says Melanie Fish, head of Expedia Group Brands public relations.

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According to Expedia's Summer Travel Outlook cheat sheet, travelers should follow these steps:

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"The cheat sheet is easy this year — book one to two months out and save around 15%, whether you're taking the family to the beach in Florida or summering in Paris," said Fish.

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Summer Travel: Here's how to save on airfare, according to Expedia

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Sustainable Travel Study

Join Expedia Group today

Signup is easy, free, and gives you exposure to over 675 million monthly site visits.

In our last Travel Recovery Trend Report, covering the second quarter of 2021, we highlighted several positive signs for the industry. As we moved into Q3, however, concerns around the Delta variant and renewed restrictions led many travelers to reevaluate. Still, the industry saw positive progress in many areas. This latest installment tracks this momentum using our first-party Expedia Group traveler data and custom research, presented at both a global and regional level. Travel marketers can use these latest insights to inspire travelers and continue their road to recovery.

How do consumers feel about sustainable travel?

As travel restrictions continue to ease and travelers make plans once again, a growing number of people are seeking ways to have more meaningful and conscientious experiences, whether it’s looking for sustainable options or improving their impact on the destinations and communities they visit.

In this study, we examine in detail how consumers feel about sustainable travel, based on a survey of 11,000 people from 11 countries around the world.

Download the study to learn:

• How important sustainable options are to consumers when traveling
• What people would sacrifice to be a more sustainable traveler
• What sustainable resources people are looking for when planning a trip

Read time: approximately 10 minutes

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[REPLACE FULL WIDTH]

Why Expedia Group?

Millions of travelers visit Expedia Group sites every day to shop for their travel needs. We use multiple factors, including traveler search criteria and past booking behavior, to deliver optimal property search results that provide travelers with the most relevant properties and deals every time they search. Understanding the factors that influence your display can help you optimize your visibility and boost the bookings generated for your property.

Reach a global audience

Your property is marketed on over 200 travel booking sites such as Expedia, Hotels.com, Egencia and more; in more than 75 countries and 35 languages; which attract 75M monthly flight shoppers.

Attract diverse travelers to your door

Our dynamic portfolio of brands helps you generate bookings through a wide range of channels including corporate, mobile, packages (e.g. flight + hotel) and more.

Maximize your revenue potential

Our easy-to-use tools and world class sales and support teams help you optimize your strategy to fill your rooms and increase revenue.

Thank you for registering for our webinar – What travelers want in 2021.

You will receive an email confirmation shortly.  We’ll see you there!

Find out where your travellers are coming from

Are you targeting the right market? Find out where your travellers are coming from, how long they're staying and who is spending the most.

Find out how you should be pricing your rooms

Your market report can help you plan your revenue management strategy. Compare your pricing to your competitive set and find out which weeks are your most popular.

Expedia YouTube Channel Trailer

Learn more about booking behaviors.

Find out how your travellers are booking their trips, and whether packages and promotions can help boost your revenues.

Look Inside

Manage your business with Expedia Group anytime, anywhere.

Download the Partner Central app and get quick, easy access to the tools and data you need.

What our partners are saying

Value Add Promotions are a great way to encourage a guest to book with us, while keeping our average daily rate strong.

Accelerator affords us the ability to keep up with the larger chain hotels who have more robust advertising budgets to gain market share and exposure.

The Promotions tool in Partner Central helped us increase room nights by 450% in 2016. We’ve never seen almost instantaneous growth through any other online supplier.

Join Expedia Group Today7

Sign up is easy, free, and gives you exposure to over 675 million monthly site visits.

This site uses cookies for analytics, navigation, and advertising. By continuing to browse the site or clicking ‘I agree’, you consent to our use of cookies.