Mobile searches for budget hotels outweigh those for luxury properties – but the latter is growing fast.

This is one of a number of findings from a huge study by Sojern, using both its own data and that from Google, examining search and booking trends across mobile and desktop devices.

Searches at the economy end of the scale in hotels now come 73% from a mobile device.

Midscale properties are at 62%, upscale are 53% and luxury at 45%, the data from throughout 2016 showed.

But the top-end is showing the fastest rate of growth, with searches for luxury hotels increasing by 23% in the six months between July and December 2016, compared the same period in 2015.

Economy property searches increased by 14% during the timeframe.

Whilst the lower rate of growth for budget properties is “partially due to the fact that most searches for hotels in this segment are happening on mobile”, according to Sojern, familiarity with mobile engines by those that would ordinary have used a laptop for a “more considered buy” (ie expensive) is also starting to kick in.

Other datapoints shared in the study include:

Growth in searches for brand term types

Search and booking time trends (blue is search, orange in booking)

Frequency of other products before hotel activity (blue is search, orange is booking)

Hotel search lead times

Hotel booking lead times

Kurt Weinsheimer, senior vice president of property solutions at Sojern, says:

“Travel audiences are incredibly savvy researchers and comparison-shoppers, sometimes visiting 30 or more websites, apps, and aggregators to research and book.

“When you account for the different devices being employed and overlay that with the multitude of channels visited throughout the path-to-purchase, the complexity for marketers increases exponentially.”

NB: The full interactive report is available here.