The growing number of non-transactional sites has begun to siphon consumers from transactional sites during the earlier phases of travel planning, according to findings from PhoCusWright's Online Traffic and Conversion Report.
The study, conducted in partnership with Compete Inc., found that over the past few years, traffic to non-transactional sites has increased from 29% of all travel category visitations to 33%. Non-transactional sites clearly play a role in influencing travellers, and impact both traffic and conversion rates on transactional sites.
There are many different types of non-transactional Web site categories, each filling a particular role in the search, shop, buy process:
- Lead generators (such as like TravelZoo and BookingBuddy.com): they represent the largest non-transactional category, though they experienced a noticeable decline in 2009. These sites received nearly 15 million unique monthly visitors on average in 2Q2009. The decline in traffic to lead generator sites was likely caused in part by the increased popularity of metasearch sites.
- Meta search sites: this category has sustained substantial traffic increases, contributing significantly to the growth of the non-transactional category as a whole.
- Planning and reviews sites: this category experienced the most dramatic growth trajectory doubling its traffic over two years.
- Travel guides sites: this category has also posted gains, adding over 4 million unique monthly visitors since 2Q2007.
- Destination and tourism category: the only non-transactional category that has remained relatively stagnant. It consists of destination marketing organizations and other destination-specific travel Web sites.
Non-transactional Web sites are beginning to lessen consumers' reliance on the major OTAs for product information. This certainly does not mean that OTAs have lost consumer value, but the travel planning process has become less linear over time, with multiple categories of travel sites forming a complex web that leads ultimately to a transaction.
Summary of traffic to travel categories* (monthly unique category visitors):
- 2Q 2007: 71% transactional sites / 29% non-transactional sites
- 2Q 2008: 67% / 33%
- 2Q 2009: 67% / 33%
* Category unique visitors who visit multiple categories would be counted each time they visit a different category.
(PhoCusWright FYI October 2009, October 2009)
