Travel Trend Report – get prepared for July peak!
Consumers will soon start their last-minute vacation bookings. We are expecting July 2019 to show very strong travel sales again! Our numbers for 2018 demonstrate that July was the second most important peak for travel. And the whole travel industry has grown significantly over the past 12 months. So you should hurry up to take advantage of the upcoming peak in travel sales!
Traditionally right after Christmas people start to plan their vacation, so January used to be by far the strongest month for travel sales, as you can still see in the 2017 numbers. But over the last 12 months we experienced an overall strong growth in this segment and sales peaks flattened a bit. The first half of 2019 shows very impressive results: Order value in the first 5 months of 2019 increased by 29% YOY, number of clicks by 39% and the average order value by 40%.
With these very healthy numbers the travel industry demonstrated stronger growth than the average other industries and has further expanded its important role for affiliate marketing. Travel sales now accounts for almost 35% of the Tradedoubler affiliate business. AOV in the travel industry is significantly higher than across all industries and rose to 120 Euros during the first half of 2019, compared to 70 Euros across all industries. The numbers for Smartphone AOV are even more impressive: While Smartphone AOV across all industries was at 63 Euros, for travel it rose to an average of incredible 307 Euros during the first half of 2019. Very interesting observation is, that mobile sales is still very low though in travel. While across all industries mobile sales in 2019 rose to 23% (compared to 20% in 2018), in the travel industry it just reached 6% (compared to 4%) in 2019.
Belgium and Poland maintain leading position in growth
Some countries have seen specifically high growth in travel OV in the first half of 2019: Belgium grew by incredible 822% YOY, Poland by 742%, Spain by 151%, Italy by 79% and Germany by healthy 39%.
Coupons and vertical sites are catching up
Looking at the publisher models, the top sellers at the beginning of 2019 remained Cashback/Loyalty (31%), Coupon/Discount (20%) and Vertical sites (15%), sharing almost 70% of the order value amongst them. All of them have benefited from the growth in the travel segment, but Coupon/Discount and Vertical sites are catching up significantly and have grown more than Cashback/Loyalty during this time. The conversion rate in Cashback/Loyalty further increased to a new record level of 18% (compared to a CR of 2% across the travel industry). The share of mobile sales in this publisher model increased to 17%, while mobile sales in general across the travel industry remains at a low 6%.
Key facts for Cashback/Loyalty in Travel:
Key facts for Coupons/Discount codes/Deals in Travel:
Key facts for Vertical sites in Travel:
Take advantage of the expected sales peak in July in travel! Our numbers prove that there’s a lot of potential in this fast growing industry for you. If you haven’t planned or booked your travel campaigns yet, please get in touch with your Client Development Teams right away!
Key facts for Travel across Europe at a glance:
