2016 Europe Travel Trends Report

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One-third of worldwide travellers report1 they’ll spend more on travel in 2016 than the year previous. Of those big spenders, Europeans dominate the list, with Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Austria, Germany, and France all making the top 10.

For any brand looking to reach European travellers as they search and book a trip, or spend while in-destination, these insights are intended to inform the targeting strategies and campaign activities to reach the right audience at the right moment—when they’re ready to engage.

Our report looks at more than one billion travel intent signals from January 2015 through June 2016 in order to understand the behaviour of European travellers, including:

• Most popular travel spots and shifts in popularity;

• Top emerging and declining markets;

• Travel planning and search behaviour by country; and

• Average trip duration across Europe.

Read on to understand the latest European travel trends and plan your most effective marketing campaigns yet.

1 TripAdvisor’s TripBarometer: Travel Trends 2016

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Europe Timing: Trip Duration Search

TRIP DURATION SEARCHED BY COUNTRYEuropean travellers are highly diverse, and individual countries demonstrate significant variability in their travel planning behaviour. This is evident from looking at their trip duration.

For example, people in Greece search for travel lasting an average of 5.4 days. In the Netherlands, travel planners look for longer-than-average trips, at just over a week, 8.7 days.

Hotel marketers might consider tailoring upsell offers around trip duration propensity by country—a ‘6th night free’ deal might go further when targeted to Greek travellers vs. those coming from the Netherlands.

RankWho searches for the shortest trips?

Who searches for the longest trips?

1 Monaco Armenia

2 Guernsey Netherlands

3 Isle of Man Russia

4 Faroe Islands Germany

5 Greece Belarus

For full list, see Appendix

AVERAGE TRIP DURATION

7 days

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Europe Timing: Lead Times Search

LEAD TIME SEARCHED BY COUNTRYPlacing ads in front of in-market travellers requires you to first know how far in advance they’re looking. The average planning lead time for Europe as a whole is 73 days.

However, it’s not enough to plan campaigns around the continental average. If your marketing campaigns target this average alone, you’d miss some audiences and be too early to effectively reach others.

Lead times in Germany and France differ by nearly two weeks.

The fact is that Germans are one of Europe’s earliest travel planners with a lead time of 80 days. France has a shorter pre-travel planning time of 67 days. These differences demonstrate that marketers looking to reach European travellers with the right message at the right time should work with data-driven partners who can accurately target based on planning behaviours compared with the actual date of travel.

Rank Who searches the earliest? Who searches the latest?

1 Ireland Kosovo

2 United Kingdom Azerbaijan

3 Iceland Albania

4 Faroe Islands Montenegro

5 Germany Armenia

For full list, see Appendix

AVERAGE LEAD TIME

73 days

5

-2

+2

+3

Popular Searched Destinations for Europe: 2015 to 2016

European travel to major tourist destinations in Spain, Italy, the UK, Greece, and Portugal remain strong. The US and Canada are both top destinations that have seen an incremental lift in 2016—with strong economies and ties to Europe, they’re growing in popularity.

Given the economic and political unrest in Russia, Turkey, and Egypt, it’s no surprise to see declining interest for Europeans. In the meantime, warm-weather destinations like Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Croatia, and New Zealand are picking up travellers.

TOP EMERGING AND DECLINING MARKETS 2015 TO 2016TOP DESTINATIONS FOR EUROPE TRAVELLERS 2015 TO 2016

Rank 2015 2016 y/y

1 Spain Spain -

2 Italy Italy -

3 Germany United States ↑4 United States Germany ↓5 France France -

6 United Kingdom United Kingdom -

7 Greece Greece -

8 Portugal Portugal -

9 Austria Thailand ↑10 Thailand Austria ↓11 Turkey Morocco ↑12 Morocco Netherlands ↑13 Netherlands Turkey ↓14 Switzerland Switzerland -

15 Russia Canada ↑16 Romania Romania -

17 Poland Ireland ↑18 Canada Poland ↓19 Ireland Sweden ↑20 Sweden Croatia ↑

South Korea

Denmark

Canada

Portugal

Switzerland

Australia

Vietnam

Norway

Thailand

Mauritius

Croatia

Cuba

Philippines

Malaysia

South Africa

Tanzania

Indonesia

New Zealand

Iceland

Sri Lanka

Turkey

Egypt

Ecuador

Belgium

Albania

Russia

Ukraine

Costa Rica

Cyprus

Moldova

Argentina

Hong Kong

Romania

Italy

Tunisia

Poland

Lebanon

Czech Republic

Spain

Bulgaria79%

72%

71%

71%

63%

53%

48%

47%

46%

45%

45%

42%

37%

37%

37%

36%

33%

32%

31%

29%

9%

9%

7%

6%

6%

5%

5%

4%

4%

-1%

-1%

-1%

-5%

-6%

-7%

-9%

-16%

-16%

-18%

-24%

Top 20 Bottom 20

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ConclusionThe vast majority (93%) of European travel occurs intra-regionally.

Yet, political and economic factors, as well as changing tastes of Europeans all impact how they plan travel. For example, even with the UK’s ‘Leave’ result on 23 June and the falling value of the Pound, we have not seen a drastic change in UK outbound travel intent. However, emerging markets, like Iceland and their creative stopover campaigns, are showing an increase in European travellers.

Armed with these insights, you can navigate changing travel behaviours and plan your travel marketing campaigns with greater efficiency and effectiveness.

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Appendix

Country Trip Duration

Armenia 9.1

Netherlands 8.7

Russia 8.6

Germany 8.6

Belarus 8.6

Luxembourg 8.2

Serbia 8.2

Norway 8.1

Slovenia 8.1

Azerbaijan 8.0

Moldova 8.0

Ukraine 7.9

Belgium 7.9

Georgia 7.8

Finland 7.8

Czech Republic 7.8

France 7.8

Sweden 7.7

Denmark 7.6

Estonia 7.6

Kosovo 7.5

Austria 7.5

Switzerland 7.4

Ireland 7.1

Latvia 7.1

Bosnia and Herzegovina 7.1

Country Lead Time

Ireland 87

United Kingdom 86

Iceland 86

Faroe Islands 84

Germany 80

Finland 78

Estonia 77

Netherlands 76

Norway 75

Latvia 75

Hungary 74

Malta 74

Belgium 73

Luxembourg 72

Czech Republic 71

Austria 71

Lithuania 70

Jersey 70

Poland 70

Slovenia 70

Denmark 69

Croatia 69

Switzerland 69

Cyprus 67

Isle of Man 67

France 67

Country Trip Duration

Bulgaria 7.0

United Kingdom 7.0

Albania 6.9

Lithuania 6.9

Hungary 6.9

Macedonia 6.9

Portugal 6.9

Poland 6.8

Croatia 6.5

Montenegro 6.5

Romania 6.5

Iceland 6.4

Italy 6.3

Spain 6.3

Malta 6.3

Cyprus 6.1

Gibraltar 5.8

Jersey 5.7

Slovakia 5.5

Greece 5.4

Faroe Islands 5.4

Isle of Man 5.2

Guernsey 4.7

Monaco 4.7

Country Lead Time

Portugal 67

Gibraltar 66

Spain 65

Sweden 64

Italy 64

Romania 64

Bulgaria 63

Guernsey 62

Russia 62

Slovakia 60

Greece 60

Serbia 58

Belarus 55

Monaco 54

Ukraine 53

Georgia 51

Moldova 50

Bosnia and Herzegovina 50

Macedonia 50

Armenia 48

Montenegro 45

Albania 42

Azerbaijan 41

Kosovo 40

AVERAGE TRIP DURATION IN DAYS AVERAGE LEAD TIME IN DAYS

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Sojern is the travel industry’s leading performance marketing engine. Through Sojern’s Traveller Platform and billions of traveller intent data signals across online and mobile channels, we put more heads in beds,

travellers in seats, and tourists in towns for our clients worldwide.

www.sojern.com

Sojern’s reports are based on the rigorous analysis of more than a billion traveller intent data points, obtained through Sojern’s unique partnerships with some of the world’s most renowned travel brands. The insights available through this analysis enable brands to deliver the right messages to the right traveller at the right time through display, video, mobile, and social advertising. For more travel insights, see our resource center.