Analyzing data from its comScore Mobile Metrix 2.0 service, comScore’s study of U.S. smartphone travel behaviors found that approximately 40 million consumers (totaling 37 percent of smartphone users) accessed travel sites or apps from their smartphone in July 2012. The most visited travel sites, include TripAdvisor Media Group with a smartphone audience of 6.7 million visitors, followed by Expedia Inc. with 6 million visitors and Southwest Airlines with 4.1 million visitors. Women were more likely than men to access online travel sites via their smartphones, with Travelocity and Orbitz displaying the strongest gender skews. comScore assures the integrity of its data, noting,
“Mobile Metrix 2.0 utilizes comScore’s Unified Digital Measurement™ for smartphone devices, combining passive on-device measurement with census-level data to provide one of the most accurate and detailed views into actual U.S. mobile media usage across apps and mobile browsing.”
While TripAdvisor Media Group and Expedia Inc., led as the top travel destination for smartphone owners, Southwest Airlines was the top airline in the ranking with 4.1 million visitors. Delta Airlines was also among the top 10 destinations with 2.1 million visitors. Priceline.com was the fourth most visited destination with 3.5 million viewers while Travora Media, which includes entities like Flightaware and Hotelplanner, ranked fifth with 2.5 million visitors.
Time spent across apps and browsers show that travel category engagement was more evenly distributed among browser and app access when compared to the total Internet distribution. comScore indicates,
“In July, 53 percent of minutes spent on Travel category content originated from apps, with browsers accounting for 47 percent of minutes. In contrast, 83 percent of all mobile content was consumed via apps with only 17 percent being accounted for by browser usage.”
Analysis of the top 15 travel sites revealed significant differences in male and female visitation patterns. comScore found,
“the most evident gender difference among OTAs [Online Travel Agents] was demonstrated by Travelocity where 65.9 percent of the brand’s smartphone audience was female with an index of 137.”
Relative to the total Travel category, females represented 14 percent more visitors to Expedia Inc., 12 percent more visitors to Kayak.com, and 22 percent more for Orbitz. Men were, however, more active users of Priceline, accounting for the majority of visitors at 53.4 percent.