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Insights - Travel Booking Abandonment
Seven additional statistics, pieces of data, insights, or pieces of information surrounding travel booking abandonment include the fact that 17.6% of people who visit travel sites start the booking process, but only 3.1% complete the booking, cart abandonment was highest for travel sites with an 81.1% abandonment rate, and urgency messaging that tell travel site visitors how many people are viewing the same flight reduces travel booking abandonment by 8% when used well. Detailed information is in the next section.
Statistics, Data, and Insights
- According to SaleCycle, 17.6% of people who visit travel sites start the booking process, but only 3.1% complete the booking. Some reasons for the abandonment include difficulty in selecting options, problems with completing forms, and trouble with processing the payment.
- A report called 'The Remarketing Report — Q1 2018' by SaleCycle states that cart abandonment was highest for travel sites where 81.1% of customers left their order behind instead of making purchases.
- Since travel purchases are generally expensive, many people shop around before deciding on purchasing. According to Tripadvisor, 80% of research on travel takes over four weeks to be finalized and this means that people visit several travel sites where they start and abandon several bookings before they make the final decision to make a purchase.
- According to Statista and SaleCycle, in 2018, airlines had the highest cart abandonment rates with 87.87% of people abandoning their travel booking before making a purchase.
- Writing for PhocosWire, the editor-in-chief for SaleCycle, Graham Charlton, believes that the long and complex travel booking process where visitors have to provide individual details such as passport numbers, seat preferences, and in-flight meals lengthens the booking process leading to frustration and abandonment of the booking process. Also, airline abandonment rates are steady throughout the year, between 87% and 89%, but they are generally lower in the months between September and December as this is a period with the lowest sales volume.
- On-site messaging including urgency messaging, where people are given information to push them towards a decision, such as being shown messages telling them how many people are viewing the same flight, reduces travel booking abandonment by 8% when used well.
- According to SaleCycle, 87% of people would consider returning to purchase a previously abandoned booking. Giving people an option to save their booking and sending timely booking abandonment emails can tempt people back to purchase a previously abandoned booking.
Research Strategy
To find seven additional statistics, pieces of data, insights, or pieces of information surrounding travel booking abandonment, our strategy was to search for relevant information from industry databases, publications, and reports. This strategy led us to sources such as PhocusWire, Statista, and SaleCycle, a travel technology company that has worked with over 90 of the world’s biggest travel companies and tracked more than 280 million online bookings and abandonments from their airline and travel clients in 2018. We also gathered insights from experts such as the editor-in-chief for SaleCycle. The sources provided seven statistics, insights, data, and information that we included in our findings.