The document summarizes the online consumer journey for travel planning. It discusses how consumers are inspired by online videos and content to consider destinations, do extensive research across multiple devices over 1-2 weeks, and return to websites and search engines numerous times before booking. It also highlights how Google tools like Flights, Trends, Authorship and Hangouts can enhance every stage of the process from inspiration to sharing experiences.

1. The Online Consumer Journey:
Inspiring Traveler Decisions
Dennis Morgenstern

2. A different path to purchase in today’s
digital age
Sources: 1. Compete Canada Q3 2012. Survey, O12. How much time passed from when you first started shopping online to when you
actually booked hotel rooms/airline tickets/vacation packages/vehicle rentals? Please select one answer only. n=848 (online only).
2. Compete Canada Q3 2012. Survey, C3: Which search engine did you use? n=825 C4. Approximately how many searches did you
conduct on each engine *Average across all search engines (Ask, Bing, Yahoo) n=varies by search engine
Amy sees content or
an ad on one of the 4
screens
Amy researches just
before going to a an
agent
Amy shares her
experience online,
engages with friends &
brands and again looks
for content
Amy researches the
web for 1-2+weeks1,
does 3-5 searches2

3. Which
stage is
relevant for
you?

4. Dreaming

5. YouTube is a tremendous content
platform for travel
7
> 50 million travel
videos
100 Hours of Video
Uploaded… every
minute
Massive audience:
More than 1 trillion
views per year

6. Online Videos Inspire & Prompt Consumers To Book
Source: The Traveler’s Road to Decision, Google and Ipsos MediaCT. July 2012. (Q4) Which of the following have you done online in the past 6 months? (Select ALL that apply) Base: Total Respondents. *Watched/uploaded/commented on
travel videos online. Source: Google Travel Study, April-May 2012, Ipsos MediaCT (Q10b) Did you end up booking a trip on any of the online sources you used to help plan your trip? Base: Prompted to book and used source. (n=floating. New
question in 2012.)
63%$$
were$inspired$
$
64%$
choosing(a(
des,na,on(
$
75%$
affluent$
travelers$
45%$
leisure$
travelers$

7. Creator Academy
10h7p://creatoracademy.withgoogle.com/$

8. Planning

9. 0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
January-10 January-11 January-12 January-13
Desktop
Tablets with full browsers
Mobile devices with full browsers
Source: Google internal data, travel searches in Canada, 2010/01- 2013/05

10. When it comes to searching for travel destinations, Canadians
have somewhat distinct habits
Source: Google Internal Data(
Australia Top Destinations Germany Top Destinations
Canada Top Destinations

11. Bookers take multiple visits before deciding,
60% come back 5+ times
Source: Compete Clickstream Q32012 BF03, Bookers repeatedly visit a brand prior to booking.
1 visit
12% 10% 59%
2 visits
3 to 4
visits
19%
5+
visits

12. Plan your trip has changed
15

13. The new multiscreen world in travel
“The New Multi-screen World.” Google and Ipsos MediaCT US. September 2012. Base: Have Started Activity on One Device &
Continued on Another (627) Q. For the activities listed, think about the last time you started each activity on one device and then
continued or finished the same activity on another device. Please select which device you started and then continued on.
20
47%
45%
3%
Started on a
Smartphone
Continued
on a PC
Continued
on a tablet
38%
31%
7%
Started on a
PC/Laptop
Continued on
a smartphone
Continued
on a tablet

14. Seriously?

15. Google Flight Search
h7ps://www.google.com/flights/explore$

16. Ask what’s next - Google Consumer
Surveys
Source: Google Consumer Surveys: Canadian Airline & Online Travel Agent Purchase Habits. Feb 5th – Feb 27th 2013. Q. Why did
you decide to book your airline ticket on an Online Travel Agency's site like Expedia, Travelocity etc., instead of with an airline direct
like Air Canada or WestJet? Sample of 500 unique, randomly sampled internet users across the Google Consumer Surveys
publisher network. Average margin of error is +/- 4%.
h7p://www.google.com/consumersurveys/$

17. h7p://www.google.org/denguetrends/$
Google Trends

18. Experiencing

19. Deliver past travelers’ and local knowledge
Search: “Munich Biergarten”

20. Find the options

21. Sharing

22. Google Authorship:
Link your Google+ profile to the content you create
28h-ps://plus.google.com/authorship(

23. Hangouts for travel
• Live engagement
with up to 9 people
• Record the hangout
• New content for your
blog or channel

24. You can see how everyone else spreads the word

25. Thank You