Ting Ting Yan, Jenna Hovel, and Sarah Robinson from Google Presentation at The Travel Marketing Summit 2015

Editor's Notes

• #4: Over 50% of travelers have no idea where they want to go when they think about their next trip. Roughly half of travelers aren’t completely certain about their vacation destination for family trips (54%), life event celebrations (45%) or honeymoons (66%) – TRTD 2014. The dreaming stage is a huge white canvas to play in. 2015 predicted to be an even healthier year for travel than 2014. All signs positive – ADR up, airlines filling to capacity, people expressing sentiment to travel more (both domestic and int’l) and spend more per trip. (PhoCusWright) This is a good time for the industry esp destinations-oriented marketers to think about how to capture the attention of travelers at the start of their dreaming.
• #5: Search engines and YouTube are top online sources of inspiration for leisure air travel. It’s not a surprise that YouTube and social media have grown as “dream machines.” Base: Airline quota among leisure travelers and use online sources for inspiration (n=382)INSPIRE1: And, which online sources typically inspire you to start thinking about your leisure or leisure trips? (Select ALL that apply)Source: Google Travel Study, June 2014, Ipsos MediaCT
• #6: I attended a recent Skift conference and they spent 10 mins talking about this. In the past - Hotel brands and DMOs once saw travel blogs and social networks, esp Twitter, as the best new source of un-filtered insight into their hotel or destination. This didn’t pan out – a number of reasons: SEO setbacks, viral hashtags that never went viral, too expensive to win over bloggers. In the end, just ended up being poor ROI. Now – many travel brands are embracing the promise of Instagram and the growing pool of travel influencers on Instagram. Cole Rise 962K followers Pei Ketron 875K followers Foster Huntington 975K followers The promise of Instagram: Millennials Smartphones In-market Visual If done well, viral
• #7: Essentially two approaches: Relying on influencers - British Airways or Bermuda Tourism Authority invited a handful of Instagram influencers to an event or destination to take pics, hashtag, and upload (lots of pampering and attention in exchange for their social clout or network) Relying on the masses (a people’s brand) – Tourism Australia or Disney World – encouraging real life travelers to share as much as possible and like either user uploads or professional content the brand has put up itself This is a trend to watch out for because it is only going to get bigger and more interesting as brands take new approaches. It speaks to what we were discussing earlier about the importance of visual culture and sharing aspect that dominates the dreaming stage of travel.
• #8: Power of a visual social channel like YouTube is that it connects dreaming to intent. Best ex – Visit California from last year Goals Generate awareness and consideration for the California brand and create incremental travel impact with a limited budget across key global markets   Approach Took over the YouTube masthead for 24 hours and featured a new video each hour Broadened the reach with Lightbox Ads Created downstream impact on consideration and intent to visit California with TrueView ad   Results 7% lift in consideration / 17% lift in likelihood to visit California 21% increase in California travel search volume on Google Website visitation lift two days after the YouTube takeover: 306% in US, 165% in Canada, and 920% in UK. Why this was innovative Live Masthead: youtube.com.  Note that a big part of the innovation here is that a dynamic feed is changing the masthead every hour (local time) to release a new video of their 24.  Really innovative.  Make sure they enable volume! Live Mobile Masthead: Encourage your clients to navigate to youtube.com from their phone (redirect to m.youtube.com) for mobile roadblocks that are live in USA, Canada, and UK. Channel: All masthead traffic is leading to youtube.com/VisitCA. Music: Two concerts are part of this.  The "Dream Gig" is a recording of Band of Horses playing on location atop the Hollywood sign.  They also have a Big Top concert from Edward Sharpe. Landing Page: In addition to sending traffic to the channel, they are also sending traffic to this website landing page. Press Coverage: This has the best talking points, covered over at Skift [article].  Their Skift Take is best: "Content is king and tourism marketers are realizing that giving travelers a place to dream about, even before they are ready to book, is key building a brand and relationship with future visitors.” I’d take it a step further by saying “ESPECIALLY before they are ready to book” Next example to close off this section highlights the importance of connecting with content before the traveler even has any intention of visiting.  
• #9: Load up - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQCJ0hmT768 “The future of travel is all about connecting the physical and the digital.” One of the best examples of is what Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority (LVCVA) did this summer to attract visitors. Insight – many people have a one dimensional perception of Vegas. Solution – show them all the different sides of the city through sight sound motion. LVCVA partnered with Google Maps to create a native web experience that allows users to step through Las Vegas and “feel” their vacation pre-travel, exploring different room types, clubs, shopping and culinary delights Vegas has to offer. Upon loading, the fully mobile compatible site LasVegas.com/GeoVegas presents pre-packaged experiences like “Vegas on the Edge” and “Gastropolis” catering to different interests. The advertising campaign was innovative as well. LVCVA took over the YouTube homepage in the US, UK and Canada and launched a rich media unit with interactive indoor Maps Street View right in the masthead. Fantastic example of using digital to augment our experience of the physical and heighten anticipation for the final destination. Results 784 days of brand interaction time with the masthead 583% lift in site visits within 2 days of the homepage takeover in the US (Source: Millward Brown Ad Impact Study)  
• #10: One of travelers’ biggest pain points is the booking process – it’s too long, it’s confusing, there are too many steps. It’s actually kind of crazy how many hoops some brands make you jump through before they’ll take your money.
• #11: Hotels.com was an early champion of speedy, easy bookings. 3 years ago they set a new standard for a fast, uncomplicated booking – it needs to be easy enough that you could do it in 60 seconds while skydiving. A lot of companies have been playing catch up since… Mobile queries are growing fast. For all of travel, mobile queries grew 30% in the past year. For some of the sub-verticals, like hotels, the rate is even faster
• #12: And while it was a bit slow to start, the bookings are following. Mobile now makes up nearly 1/3 of all online travel purchases Last year, travel revenues from mobile devices grew 121% yoy Source: Criteo, Dec 2014 L2 Mobile Bookings, July 2014
• #13: This trend will only continue to accelerate. Some brands worry that consumers don’t yet trust booking on mobile – the rise of mobile payment options are changing that – esp fast adoption of apple pay Clunky booking processes are out and simplicity is in – hotel tonight is showing not only how easy mobile booking can be – but also how fun and rewarding it can be You can tell how fast a trend is moving when brands start moving onto an even smaller screen – several travel brands (from starwood to hotels.com to iberia air) announced their smartwatch apps last year – while you can’t quite book via smartwatch yet, we have to assume it’s not far behind
• #16: Smartphone is used more than any-other devices in the experience phase http://skift.com/2014/04/24/u-s-travelers-use-mobile-for-directions-restaurants-and-activities/?utm_source=Skift&utm_campaign=2bec18ef4a-UA-28362693-1&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_fe7fb4248c-2bec18ef4a-6380642 The online survey of more than 50,000 TripAdvisor users who planned their vacations online, found that 73% used their mobile phones to get around a destination, 62% searched for restaurants, 52% looked for activities, half shared their travels in social media, and 27% searched for hotels. ONE BIG PART NOT MENTIONED IN THE BOOKING PROCESS IS EXPERIENCING OR IN-DESTINATION. How can what people are already doing on their phones while they are traveling help you increase engagement and revenue at each other stage of the process?
• #17: Impact of mobile is poised to be even more profound in what was traditionally a dark period for travel companies- the period after bookings have been done, before actual travels happen, and during the in-situ travel phase. Most travelers spend 42% of the money they’ll budget for a trip in the period before departure. A majority of spending, a full 58% of it, still happens in-trip, and that’s where the big oppty for disruption lies. Begs the question - Are marketers focusing in on the wrong phase of travel? It's a bit of a red herring to obsess about technology in the booking phase. The money is there because the profit is there but we should also be spending our time and mental energy thinking about how technology can improve the in-destination experience. There is tremendous oppty and $$$ in-destination.
• #18: Be apart of the travel experience through mobile from check-in to check out → EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN Marriott, and other hotels, also increasing usefulness of apps during in-destination – order room service, book amenities, etc
• #19: Recently went on a Norwegian Cruise, was really blown away by how much they were offering in terms an onboard smartphone experience – a lot of cruise lines are doing – this will be discussed in more detail this afternoon, but several cruise lines have done a really good job with this – they’ve acted fast and as a result they’re reaping the benefits of their investment in a simple, useful mobile experience.
• #20: So what does this all mean? The rise of social & video, the unprecedented connectivity throughout the travel process, changing consumer expectations….
• #21: It means the funnel we’re all used to is changing. A lot.
• #22: The basic stages are all there – but it looks a lot more like this now It seems complicated, and on top of that, it looks a little bit different for every traveler, for every trip. But really, it’s just about following consumer behavior – and useful content across all these channels to help them along their own travel journeys.
• #23: For more consumer insights and travel trends…connect with us