A new travel survey reveals that the majority (81%) of travelers believe taking a vacation is very important, citing exposure to beauty, culture and new people as the biggest benefit. The survey also discovered that despite vast technological leaps and the convenience of online search and booking, planning a vacation is still a time-consuming proposition with 51% of those polled saying they spend a minimum of 2-3 hours over multiple days hunting down airfare deals and nearly a one-third spending in excess of 4 hours over multiple days. The overwhelming majority (79%) also said they would relinquish some privacy issues to expedite security checkpoints and voiced what they want airlines to do to maintain their loyalty.
“The goal of this survey was to gain an understanding of consumer trends to better service customers moving forward and hopefully provide the travel industry, in general, with some insight about what travelers want and ways to increase loyalty,” explains Chris Lopinto, president and co-founder of ExpertFlyer.com.
Among the key survey highlights:
- 51% said they spend a minimum of 2-3 hours over multiple days to find airfare deals and 27% spend in excess of 4 hours over multiple days. 80% of respondents said they book their tickets directly from the airlines via the Internet
- 37% have taken additional travel precautions in the last 12 months and 79% said they would consider participating in a biotech ID program, such as fingerprint or retina scans if it meant reducing wait times at TSA checkpoints and improve overall security
- 65% said they were able to redeem points for either an upgrade or award ticket in the last 12 months (up from 58% in a survey conducted last year)
- TripAdvisor (62%), Airline apps (42%) and Uber (26%) were the top three free travel apps
- Email (88%), Text (63%) and Facebook (52%) were the top 3 communication tools used by travelers
- A total of 1,226 consumers participated in the survey
Check out the Infographic for more details
