Expedia Media Solutions has launched a new study by comScore, The Traveler’s Path to Purchase, which identifies trends and behaviors of American, British and Canadian consumers along the 45-day digital journey leading up to a travel purchase.

NB: This is a viewpoint by Matthew Reichek, global vice president of product and analytics for Expedia Media Solutions

In all three regions, digital travel content consumption is on the rise. There are 806 million minutes spent on digital travel content in Canada, 2.4 billion minutes in the UK and 8.7 billion minutes in the US, a year-over-year growth in each.

While the time spent on digital travel content varies, the study found that travelers in the three countries share some behavioral similarities when it comes to travel planning.

During the research and booking process, digital users are actively seeking travel content and are receptive to new information; nearly one third or more of online travel bookers across the three regions were influenced by advertising.

Other key findings from the study include:

• Mobile passes desktop for travel content consumption in the US and UK. In those countries, significantly more people engage with travel content on mobile devices than on desktops (75 percent and 82 percent on mobile respectively). Canadian travelers, however, spend slightly more minutes on desktop (65 percent) than mobile devices.
• Online bookers increasingly engage with travel content in the weeks leading up to a purchase. In the 45 days before booking, overall Canadians visit the most travel sites with 161 visits, Americans make 140 visits and British travelers make 121 visits. More travel sites are visited in all three countries as the consumer gets closer to booking their trip.
• Shoppers turn to online travel agencies (OTAs) and travel information sites most. Accounting for around one third of site visits for British, American and Canadian travelers, OTAs have the greatest share of visitation when looking at the booking journey as a whole. Travel information sites claim the second highest share across the board. These resources account for 21 percent of site visits in the UK and US and 26 percent in Canada.

If you missed the webinar, you can listen to the full recording here.

Or download the full findings from Path to Purchase study here to learn:

• desktop and mobile usage trends across the purchase path
• factors influencing destination selection
• resources utilized during the pre-booking window
• advertising effectiveness by channel and purchase phase

NB: This is a viewpoint by Matthew Reichek, global vice president of product and analytics for Expedia Media Solutions. It appears here as part of Tnooz’s sponsored content initiative.