Every November, consumers fire up their devices and desktops to shop online and spend billions of dollars. Last year, 64 million people shopped online and in stores during the Black Friday holiday ecommerce weekend. Being the largest online shopping season across the globe, travel and non-travel marketers have a massive opportunity to engage consumers while they are online shopping and spending.
According to Sojern’s data, consumers are also searching for and booking travel while they are online during November’s ecommerce holidays, such as Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Mexico’s el Buen Fin. Travelers around the world begin their holiday travel searches in October. But late in October, they stop searching for travel until the November ecommerce holidays are in full swing—with a notable spike on Cyber Monday.
How Has Traveler Intent Changed this Holiday Season from 2017
Holiday Travel in the US
For the US, there is an expected 33% growth rate in holiday mobile sales—reaching $54.2B in 2018. At Sojern, we are already seeing a 5% increase for both November and December travel searches in 2018 compared to 2017. This year, departure dates that are searched and already booked peak on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. Then overall US travel searches decline until Christmas when US travelers are looking to get away for short holiday breaks.
Holiday Travel in the UK
Last year alone, 49% of European internet users planned to make a purchase during Black Friday through Cyber Monday. For travel searches in 2017, we saw an unseasonal push on travel bookings over searches for Europeans. We also saw a large lead time of four months for travel bookings for couples and group travel.
This year, we see that Q4 travel searches in the UK during October, November, and December are increasing another 3% overall from 2017.
Holiday Travel in Mexico
Black Friday and Cyber Monday are two of the most critical dates for holiday ecommerce sales around the globe—except for Mexico where they have el Buen Fin. This year, el Buen Fin happens between November 16 – 19th. Last year, online retail sales in Mexico reached MXN$2.48B during el Buen Fin—a 43% YoY increase from 2016’s el Buen Fin sales. For travel searches, our data shows that in 2017 el Buen Fin was bigger for searches than bookings—leaving a huge untapped opportunity for travel advertisers.
