Women make up a majority of online travel website visitors and engage heavily with user reviews and social media recommendations when planning trips. They are more likely than men to read reviews on sites like TripAdvisor and make travel decisions based on social influences. To better target female travelers, marketers should focus on empowering sharing and engagement through social media integration, customer stories, mobile optimization, and leveraging behavioral data for personalized communications.

1. Angels or Devils? Insights into Women’s Behavior
Digital Marketing
April 2012 - Bangkok
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2. Questions
 How do women behave online?
 How do they plan and book travel?
 How do women differ in their use of social media and networks to
review experiences and share them?
 What websites do they visit?
 Do women look for different things than men?
Empower
 How are women different in how they rate and value experiences?
 Is the fairer sex more critical and pickier than their male brethren?
Engage
 How do I get the Angel instead of the Devil?
Connect
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3. Online Behavior – brought to you by
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4. How do women behave online?
In English-speaking countries,
Gender AU CHINA US UK
there’s a higher % of female
Female 52.8% 44.06% 53.05% 50.26% visits to travel sub categories;
Male 47.2% 55.94% 46.95% 49.74% the %s are also very similar
(betw 50-54%)
Gender AU CHINA US UK
Female 51.84% 44.22% 54.18% 51.23%
Male 48.16% 55.78% 45.82% 48.77%
In China, the percentages are
flipped. With around 55% male
visitors and 44% female.
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5. How do they plan and book travel? Social …
Recent US study by The Center
for Hospitality Research offers an
interesting snapshot of customer
preferences and information
sources for selection of hotels
Social media and
customer reviews are
an essential
part of especially
female travellers'
information gathering
process
Leisure travellers first look for
recommendations from friends
and family, especially women
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* Based on ‘”How Travellers Use Online and Social Media Channels to Make Hotel-choice Decisions”, Cornell Hospitality Report, Vol. 10,
No. 18, December 2010, The Center for Hospitality Research, December 2010

6. Women are NOT pickier than Men Women are
significantly more
likely to read a
review on
TripAdvisor
compared to men
Women are equally likely to read
both professional reviews (e.g.,
AAA) and customer reviews
(e.g., TripAdvisor), men are more
likely to rely on the professional
reviews
Men and women are equally likely to stay
away from a hotel with negative reviews and
equally likely to choose a hotel if they see
positive reviews
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7. What websites do they visit?
Category: Travel – Destinations & Accommodation
China by Visits - 12 Rolling Weeks ending March 31, 2012
Female Male Segmented
Websites Domain Segmented Rate Rate
1 hotels.ctrip.com hotels.ctrip.com 41.91% 58.09%
2 MaFengWo www.mafengwo.cn 44.02% 55.98%
3 hotel.17u.cn hotel.17u.cn 42.73% 57.27%
4 lvyou.baidu.com lvyou.baidu.com 45.31% 54.69%
5 Daodao www.daodao.com 44.79% 55.21%
6 Yododo www.yododo.com 44.00% 56.00%
7 917HK www.917hk.com 42.23% 57.77%
8 7Days Inn www.7daysinn.cn 42.12% 57.88%
9 travel.nuomi.com travel.nuomi.com 46.08% 53.92%
Review sites, Online
10 Youtx.com www.youtx.com 44.71% 55.29% travel agencies with
Australia hotel focus are top
Female Male visited sites
Websites Domain Segmented Rate Segmented Rate
1 TripAdvisor - Australia www.tripadvisor.com.au 53.87% 48.41%
2 Wotif.com www.wotif.com 51.59% 46.13%
3 Booking.com www.booking.com 53.34% 46.66%
4 TripAdvisor www.tripadvisor.com 53.35% 46.65%
5 Stayz www.stayz.com.au 56.39% 43.61%
6 Agoda Australia www.agoda.com.au 51.39% 48.61%
7 Hotels.com www.hotels.com 54.04% 49.75%
8 ninemsn Travel travel.ninemsn.com.au 50.25% 45.96%
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9 Totaltravel.com www.totaltravel.com 49.71% 50.29%
10 HotelClub www.hotelclub.com 52.36% 47.64%

8. Connect and Empower the Fairer Sex
They will give you a better review
Devil - Connect Angel - Empower
 Tripadvisor visitors  Women seek input from
53.3% female their networks
46.7% male  Run “Like” and “Share”
1. Find out your upstream campaigns via email
social websites
▲ Facebook #3  Accor  Make web/apps sharable
Tripadvisor #7  Accor
▲
 60% of Pinterest users
2. Monitor and manage are female. Are you
3. Promote reviews via pinnable?
email
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Data source: Experian Hitwise Australia

9. Empower >Enable Sharing
 “Friends & Family” campaigns
have 2x the referral rate and
2x the revenue per email
compared to bulk
 Go Viral – add ShareThis or
Refer a Friend to encourage
sharing. Emails with these viral
elements have 3x the referral
rates of campaigns without
 Get Social - include “Like”
buttons to encourage
subscribers to spread the word
on FB
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10. Empower >Customer Stories in Email
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11. Empower >On Pinterest
•Pinterestis a virtual pinboard or scrapbook to organize
and share your things of interest
•#3 most popular social networking site in the US,
surpasses LinkedIn, behind FB & Twitter
• Amazing growth since its launch in the US in last 2 yrs
 Attracts people interested in home
crafts and hobbies
 Represents 58% of FB share of
traffic to Travel industry
 Women dominate – with 60% of
visitors being female
 Keep an eye on Pinterest
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12. Who’s Smarter Now?
Women Own More Smartphones in 2011
Women Men
 53% of smartphones  47% of smartphones
 Text messages (SMS)  Streaming content
(movies/TV)
 Social networks
 Making dinner
 Sharing photos and
reservations
videos
 Checking corporate email
 Financial and shopping
 Email access
 Mobile games
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According to Compete report, Nov 2011

13. Engage >Mobile & Travel
 Reach your customers  Mobile enable your
where they are marketing
► 23% of time spent on 1. Mobile optimized site
mobile devices – only
2. Mobile optimized
1% of ad spend*
email
► Smartphone
3. 23% of adults
Consider
penetration expanding have cursed at
their SMS when
● phone
► Majority of a●site doesn’t
Custom App
Smartphone users are work !@$#%
interacting with ● In App ads
Travelcontent
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*According to Google compared to TV and Radio in the US

14. Connect >Mobile Opportunity in Asia Pac
Good news for
Travel industry
in APAC:
The most phones
in the world
Singapore #1 and
Australia #2 for
Smartphone
penetration
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15. Engage >Digital marketing tactics
 Email & Social Media Advertising
tops the list
► 2.9 Billion email accounts
globally
► 750 Million FB users
► 1.6 Billion mobile phones
Mobile and Social just make it more interesting
► Email still best ROI over other
digital channels*
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*According to study by Econsultancy and Adestra, 2012

16. Age breakdown for traffic to Category:
Agencies
Australia China
 In Australia, 55+ age group have almost 40% share of visits to the
Travel – Agencies category
 In China, 25-34 group represent 36% of all visits to the same category
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17. Target & Test
Identify key behavioral traits
& segment the market to
understand and address
demand
Who to target,
What to promote,
When to promote
Capturing behavioral data is
key to drive targeted actions
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18. Connect >Use the Data to be Relevant & Meaningful
 Personalized Subject line: Your ZUJI
StarZ HKD$100 hotel evoucher to help
you save more for your Manila trip
 Hotel Cross-Sell
 Automated based on collected data
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19. Engage >Video in Email
 In HK, US and AU,
“youtube” is the 2nd
most searched
term in 2011
 In 2014, video can
account for 50% of
all internet traffic
 Effective
engagement
because they
deliver
emotional
messages
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20. © 2010 Experian Limited. All rights reserved.
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21. Collect as Much Data as you Can
 Analytics & actionable insights
Create & build individual can be driven by things like:
customer profiles
► Channel engagement and
preference
Personalization drives expanded ► Online activity
revenue opportunity
► Attitudes, opinions and
beliefs
The right offers at the ► Psychographics and
lifestyles
right time to the right
► Demographics
customer drives
Social media insights
performance ►
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22. Connect >Shorter subject lines
Tip: Consider running a subject line test plan to
determine the best way to speak to subscribers,
understand what they are looking for, improve
open rates and subsequently improve clicks
and transactions generated via email.
For Travel industry, subject
lines of fewer than 26
characters have the highest
unique open rates at 28.9%!
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23. Connect >Relevant, Short, Timely SMS
Operational Marketing
 Confirmation numbers  Last minute offers
 Time and Terminal for  Simple satisfaction survey
flight departures
 Encourage review or
 Email bounced – provide sharing
the correct one
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