Asia leads travel’s mobile revolution

The Asia Pacific region is at the forefront of the travel industry’s mobile revolution, with the region’s consumers making more bookings on handheld devices than anywhere else in the world.

This is one of the major findings of a new report by advertising technology company Criteo, which demonstrates the extent to which mobile technology is impacting the industry.

In its ‘2014 Travel Flash Report’, Criteo revealed that global travel bookings made using mobile devices increased more than 20% in the first six months of 2014. This compared to a growth rate of just 2% for desktop computers.

And perhaps surprisingly, the cruise market had one of the highest mobile penetration rates, with handheld devices found to account for 31% of online cruise bookings, ahead of hotels (20%), packages (19%), rail (17%), air (15%) and car rental (14%).

In terms of geography, Asia Pacific has the world’s highest level of mobile penetration. The region leads the way with more than 20% of online travel bookings made using mobile devices, with Japan (23%) and Australia (22%) having the highest mobile booking rates.

“Mobile is the driving force behind the exponential growth in online travel booking and sales, and that’s only set to continue in the second half of this year and beyond,” said Jason Morse, Criteo’s vice president of mobile products.  “With smartphones and tablets in nearly every consumer’s hands today, travel marketers need to think strategically about developing a highly effective omni-channel marketing experience.”

Other findings from the study included the fact the value of mobile bookings is increasing in every sector other than accommodation. The average booking value was higher on mobile devices than desktop for the air travel and car rental sectors, but lower for hotel bookings. Meanwhile, app bookings were found to account for 12% of total mobile bookings.

Criteo’s report analysed the activity of more than 1,000 travel websites worldwide in the first half of 2014.