Travel Shoppers Wooed By Rich Media - Not Recommendations

If you think customer reviews and recommendations hold more weight with travel shoppers than pictures, maps and videos, you’re wrong — and your bottom line may be paying the price.

Web buyers want to see travel players’ options for themselves rather than simply acting on the recommendations of other people, according to PhoCusWright’s Travel 2.0 Consumer Technology Survey published Dec. 20.

While this finding doesn’t mean travelers aren’t influenced by reviews and recommendations, it does suggest that travel review sites that incorporate content-rich, three-dimensional maps and other visual tools are like to be “more appealing” to online shoppers, said Cathy Schetzina, director of research at PhoCusWright.

The survey also pointed out that more Americans use Web 2.0 technologies in general than have used them for travel shopping and travelers who visit the most sites during their travel planning process are usually motivated by interest in travel reviews, destination information and event tickets.

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