Traveler path to purchase (Part 1). Tourism marketing best practice.

Disclaimer: The use of this information is for MTR Premium Trends and Insights Hub Subscribers only. Information may be extracted for the purposes of funding applications or to share
insights with industry (but please attribute all material appropriately). The report in its entirety should not be shared externally. Instead please download the infographic in the membership
site. MyTravelResearch.com accepts no responsibility for unauthorised use of this data by a third party.
© MyTravelResearch.com® 2018
Client:
Prepared by:
Date:
Decoding the path to purchase and customer journey
MTR Premium Trends and Insights Hub Subscribers
Carolyn Childs
January 2018

Contents / Agenda
1 Path to Purchase meets the customer Journey
2 Why the shift in language matters
3 Understanding the key terms
4 Some frameworks to consider
5 Taking the first step: dreaming and triggers
6 A step beyond – what’s coming up

• This set of reports and documents is now our hub for considering all the things you need to know about engaging with
customers across the customer journey. It builds on several elements of our work that long time subscribers and clients may
recognise:
– Path to Purchase
– Customer Experience
• The story of the Path to Purchase began in 2004, when we conducted some research for Outback NSW. We listened to
customers talk about how they came to choose their holidays and we mapped out those phases. When we sold the
company to a big research group, they took it on board. Today the ‘TNS Travel Model’ is pretty much industry currency.
• But over the next few years, we saw an explosion of different organisations also look at the path to purchase including
Google and Mckinseys*. The digital age made this much clearer.
The Path to Purchase meets the customer journey (1)
* https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/marketing-and-sales/our-insights/the-consumer-decision-journey
Image source https://www.mytravelresearch.com/how-to-increase-yield-and-loyalty-once-your-customer-has-booked/

• But it also generated another challenge – it showed us that the path to purchase is not entirely linear and could even be
interrupted. Consider these digital search paths that Google identified*. Some used many different sources, some very few,
searches on mobile could be different from those on desktop, and you could start searching thinking you knew the brand
you wanted, but end up elsewhere
• So we saw journey paths like these start to emerge, whereby our decisions can loop back or be directed or even happen in a
different order altogether :
Sources: https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/marketing-and-sales/our-insights/the-consumer-decision-journey
https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/consumer-insights/consumer-journey-path-to-purchase/
Forrester Research as quoted in http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2017/04/buyers-journey-linear/

• As these more complex path to purchase maps emerged, we noticed many tourism operators were confused by the
complexity of those models and although many people challenged the notion of the path to purchase, they continued to use
the language of the specific stages. There is still truth in the path to purchase. So instead, we encourage people to think
about the path to purchase or customer as like a map. The world is round, so maps sometimes have to shift the
perspective to be used in different formats, but they are still helpful.
Image source: Bigstock photo
Think of our simplified path to purchase as
being like a map – although simplified the
key stages are still useful

The path to purchase becomes the customer
journey – why did we do this
Many tourism businesses
don’t enjoy marketing
preferring to focus on
delivering the experience –
But to the potential
customer the FIRST
touchpoint is actually a key
part of the experience. If
you get this wrong, many
of them will NEVER get to
the bit you think of as your
offer
We now know that there
are two kinds of ways
people enjoy a holiday: the
experiencing part and the
remembering part. It’s
actually the remembering
part that drives future
behaviour and advocacy. 3
elements of experience are
very strong in this:
The 1st touchpoint
The last touchpoint
Any element that
generated a deep
emotional reaction*
The nature of tourism
means that you are selling
at every point in the
customer journey**
* Daniel Kahneman: Thinking fast and slow
** Sources: Google/Ipsos MediaCT, "The 2015 Traveler's Road to Decision," base: U.S. leisure travelers, n=3,500, Aug. 2015; Google Consumer Survey, smartphone owners in the U.S. who
have traveled internationally for pleasure in the last year, n=1,000, Jul. 2016. These are US consumers, but we similar trends in other markets
Marketing and Experience are inextricably linked in tourism:
So we need to think about the customer journey in its entirety for both

What do we mean by the customer journey?
• Here’s how Adam Richardson defined it for Harvard Business Review* (and
a definition we really like):
It is the sum-totality of how customers engage with your
company and brand, not just in a snapshot in time, but
throughout the entire arc of being a customer.
• Although we would probably add
“and influencing others to become your customers”
Adam Richardson is a Group Product Manager at Financial Engines, and was formerly a strategy leader at innovation firm Frog Design. He is the
author of Innovation X: Why a Company’s Toughest Problems are its Greatest Advantage. Read the articles here
https://www.environment.gov.au/system/files/pages/f4d5ba7d-e4eb-4ced-9c0e-104471634fbb/files/essay-benefits-leaver.pdf and here
https://hbr.org/2010/11/using-customer-journey-maps-to

The customer journey for leisure travel
With smartphones I am just as
likely to share at ALL stages of
my journey
We’ll decode this for you and tell you what to do about it!

Let’s break that down a little
Our stage
How we might
describe this to a
customer
How we might explain that further to a customer
Dreaming Dreaming
This is where you start thinking about your trip in general terms.
You might be deciding on when or where to go, and what type
of things you want to do. A great deal of dreaming can be
unconscious – some of us are thinking about holidays all the
time
Trigger The trigger point
Something that inspired you to make a firm decision to organise
a trip
Planning Initial planning
Once you’ve decided you might want to take the trip, you start
finding information and planning it
Booking
Booking the first
item or key items
This might be the largest or most expensive, or the most
common.
Anticipating
From first booking to
planning
Obviously once you’ve booked the first item, you might keep
looking and planning. You may not book anything else. You’ll
also need to start arranging things
En route/In
Destination
On your trip
You may be one of those people who has it all planned and
booked before you go, or you may keep planning once you are
on your way or on the trip
Post trip sharing When you get back Your memories and how you share them
Source: Adaped from OMD/MyTravelResearch.com Passport to Discovery 2015

We can hypothesise a similar path to purchase for business travel. But
this report will mostly focus on leisure
The Stages Of Business Travel
Doing
business
Again the business
traveller thinks of
their trip as a whole
journey but we
interact at some
stages – and
sometimes then
only through
intermediaries

Business travellers share too!
http://www.youtube.com/watch
?v=5YGc4zOqozo
Share image source: www.freepik.com
Doing
Sharing

Questions you need to consider in connecting at
each stage of the customer journey
What job is the
customer doing?
What needs do they
have from you?
What’s your job?
How can you move
them along to the
next stage/fast track
the decision?
Where are they going
for information
(channel strategy?)
What types of
content or
information do they
need?
Are there any
friction points in my
process? We’ll consider this
one separately in
future months
What’s the time
frame?

Dreaming – your chance to inspire (1)
What job is the
customer doing?
What needs do they
have from you?
What’s your job?
What’s the time
frame?
This stage is when the customer starts thinking about their trip. She
moves from thinking about holidays generally to considering actively
where to go, what to do or what type of trip
Its early stages are in the subconscious – often unknown. It can even
be casual – something they see.
Your job is to inspire* the customer either to take the trip, or to
choose you. The more emotional and engaging your content the
more it will prove ‘sticky’ and get them to choose. If your customer
works through intermediaries you need to ensure they have that
information to hand
This varies by culture, type of trip and type of customer. For longer
trips, customers will be thinking 6 to 12 months out. For closer
between 1 to 3 months. Most travellers still travel at peak periods
so you need to plan around that. However, groups such as senior
travellers or those without children will often choose to avoid those
peaks. Plan back from when you want them to travel.
* Sometimes this is referred to as the inspiration phase, but we’ve stuck to dreaming is this is where the customer is

Where are they going for
information (channel
strategy?)
Top 5 sources in Australia and China
Source: Adapted from OMD/MyTravelResearch.com Passport to Discovery 2015
No.1 is search
Visual, informed and storytelling are all
key
Coloured visuals increase people's
willingness to read a piece of content by
80% (Xerox, 2014)
Colour increases readers' attention
spans and recall by 82% (Xerox, 2014)

strategy?)
Source: https://www.tnooz.com/article/youtube-video-influence-on-
travel/ and Think with Google
65% of travellers use video when they
are thinking of taking a trip
16% of millennial in the US use
Facebook to plan travel, as to 9% of
those over 40
13% of millennials in the US use
Instagram to plan travel
https://www.lonelyplanet.com/news/2016/10/14/t
ravellers-holiday-inspiration-social-media/
Whilst word of mouth is still important – often that is communicated
digitally and consumed on a mobile

strategy?)
If you have the budget for traditional advertising or PPC this is the key stage to use
it at.. Our research (with OMD) indicates that emotional content is vital in grabbing
attention (unless you want to be all about the lowest price)

What types of content or information do they need?
Source: Trendwatching
“You don’t need huge budgets, it’s about
the content people engage with. Anyone
can be an artist, you just need a good idea.
You can reach a lot of people in a very
emotional way”
Google UK sales director Dr Bernd Fauser
It doesn’t need to be your own – you can
share others: USA Today considered this
Corona ad to be one of the best travel ads
for inspiration in 2017
Source: Popsugar
Inspire
Engage
Tell a story – even if it is just with
an image..

Don’t forget your own assets as a source of
inspiration
With search the
number 1 way people
seek inspiration (and
everything else!) it’s
important that you
host this content on
your ‘owned’ assets like
your website. It builds
your presence in search

Driving the move from dreaming to
planning – the Trigger
What job is the
customer doing?
What needs do they
have from you?
What’s your job?
What’s the time
frame?
This moment is probably the only part of the customer journey that
is really external to the customer. It is about something that drives
the consumer to stop imagining their trip and start doing something
about it
Your job is to either create that trigger moment or to leverage
triggers that naturally occur to your best advantage.
Again this will depend on the customer but Expedia reckons it’s
mostly between 1 and 45 days before the booking actually happens
for a major trip. For a short break it could even be that day (as some
of our case studies show)

planning – the Trigger (2)
Source: Adapted from OMD/MyTravelResearch.com Passport to Discovery 2015

Here are some example of trigger moments for the customer – note
the strength of emotion. For Australia, it’s the need for a break, for
the Chinese the creation of aspiration

planning – the Trigger (3)
Email is a key source
for information
(channel strategy?)
Travellers will know whether to open your email (or paper mail) in
just 2.5 seconds – so test and learn what drives this

Social messaging is about to get more important
both this and the role of Email means you need to build great databases
for information
(channel strategy?)
http://www.strategyr.com/MarketResearch/Mobile_Messaging_Apps_Market_Trends.asp

Social messaging is about to get more important
both this and the role of Email means you need to build great databases
for information
(channel strategy?)
https://www.technoduce.com/blog/the-highlighted-top-10-instant-messaging-apps/

We’re not a great fan of deals, but used well they can drive behaviour:
Make sure people can understand why you are discounting…
What types of
content or
information do they
need?
10% of travellers in both China and
Australia said their trip was triggered by
a deal
Case study: Chris and the flight deal (a true story)
Chris had signed up to get flight deal alerts from a low cost carrier.
Late on Friday afternoon, he received an alert for a great deal to go to
another capital city. It was such a s**t hot deal he had to take it.
After booking his non-refundable ticket, he researched the cost of getting
to and from the secondary airport the flight used. Reaching it was going to
cost more than he had saved on the flights. A hot deal makes us behave
impulsively

The return to work –
after a holiday or
even just on a
Monday
The life event e.g.
kids leaving home
(both last trip with
and first trip without)
The weather –
seasonal or even
short term
A news item (but be
careful not to
grandstand on bad
news)
Customerversaries:
Acknowledge your
customers
Upgrades, changes
and downtimes
This is a great trigger
we heard of from
Affinity:
Send out an instant
message for an off peak
day or weekend when
the weather forecast is
good!
When in 1999, the US
slapped tariffs on
Australian Lamb an ad
came out saying:
The US slapped a tariff
on our lamb – we prefer
Rosemary and Garlic
6 great occasions to leverage –
can you think of others
What types of content or
information do they need?

A step beyond – what’s coming up
• That’s our overview and first two stages in a nutshell. As you can see, there’s a lot to think
about in the customer journey!
• So rather than share it all at once we are rolling it out over the first half of calendar year
2018.
• Key timings for your diary:
– January: this report
– February:
• Fast-tracking customers through the planning and booking phase
• Engaging them through anticipation
– April:
• How to make in destination memorable and shareable
• How to customise your own customer map
• Making it easy… creating a friction map
– May
• Full and final report that brings it all together

Disclaimer: Please note that the information and data contained in this update has been prepared for the specific
purpose of addressing the items for the research between MyTravelResearch.com Pty Ltd and MTR Trends and
Insights Hub Subscribers. Information may be extracted for the purposes of funding applications or to share insights
with industry (but please attribute all material appropriately). The report in its entirety should not be shared
externally. Instead please download the infographic in the membership site. MyTravelResearch.com accepts no
responsibility for unauthorised use of this data by a third party.
It may not be suitable for other applications. The use of this data for any other purpose should be discussed with the
lead author. MyTravelResearch.com accepts no responsibility for unauthorised use of this data by a third party.
© MyTravelResearch.com® 2018

Traveler path to purchase (Part 1). Tourism marketing best practice.

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