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Tourism & Leisure

Tourism &
Leisure Marketing

Impact on Travel Website Traffic & Digital Marketing

Lockdowns and other restrictions have put leisure travel on indefinite hold, dramatically changing traffic to destination websites and how DMOs are responding through digital marketing.

Check here for the latest data and analysis on organic website traffic, traffic driven by paid media, changes in DMO digital marketing spending, and other indicators of impact on leisure travel.  

Our initial reporting compares 2019 and 2020 Google Analytics data for 200 DMO websites across North America. We look at web traffic overall and separated into organic traffic vs. traffic driven by paid media ("paid traffic").


DMO Web Traffic Impact

The following charts update daily using our sample set of 200 DMOs. Depending on your connection speed, it may take several seconds for the data to load.

Overall Website Traffic


From January 1 - March 10, DMOs were seeing overall average traffic growth of 17.74 percent compared to 2019.

March 11-16

  • This period saw the sharpest decline (-48.8 percent) in overall website traffic followed by a second, less severe decline of -30.9 percent from March 17 - March 22.
  • It appears that daily overall traffic has bottomed out and has since stabilized at approximately a -66 percent decrease in daily traffic loss when compared to 2019.

April 12 - April 19 - The first green shoots of recovery in DMO web traffic have appeared. We've seen about a week of steady growth, with all sessions rising 23% in total between 4/12 and 4/19. Whether this mini-trend will continue remains to be seen, but it's wonderful to have some positive developments to tend and encourage going forward.

April 20 - April 26 - Growth continued this week, at a slightly lower rate than last, with 2.2% increase per day on average and 16% for the week. Regionally, the recovery has been strongest in the US South, where several states have begun to end the shutdown. Recovery is stronger among visitors from fly and drive markets than locals, although all types have shown improvement in delivering sessions to DMO websites.

April 27 - May 3 - Overall sessions continue to recover, for the third straight week, although the pace of the recovery has not increased. All DMO sessions grew 15% over the past week and 2% per day. It seems likely that the first signs of a thaw in the shutdown created excitement that has not been matched by real travel opportunities yet. As the ice is broken, we hope to see traffic recovery bend upward and increase at an increasing rate.

May 4 - 10 - Gains from the past couple of weeks have levelled off. While trailing-seven-day sessions are still up, point-to-point they've declined 4% from the 3rd to the 10th. That said, they declined 7% between the same points last year, so by that comparison things are still improving. Alaskan destinations and the US south continue to outperform other geographic regions.


Organic Website Traffic

2020 traffic first dipped below 2019 levels on February 27 and appear to have stabilized down 64% year over year.


Between January 1 - February 25 organic traffic had been up approximately 7 percent YoY.

February 27 - This was the first day that daily organic traffic fell below 2019 organic traffic with a loss of approximately 3 percent and signaled the first wave of organic traffic decreases.

March 11 - 23 - This period saw continued losses with a 59.5 percent decrease in daily organic traffic, most likely due to the media coverage and growing severity of the COVID-19 situation.

March 21 - April 5 - The YoY decreases in daily organic website traffic appear to be normalizing at a ~64 percent when compared to 2019. 

April 12 - April 19 - Organic search sessions are the purest simple indicator of leisure travel interest. We’ve seen 32 percent growth in organic search sessions from 4/12 to 4/19, which is a strong indication that people are beginning to think about travel again.

April 20 - April 26 - Organic search sessions recovered almost exactly as all sessions did last week, 2.2% per day, and just over 16% overall. The South continues to lead the way, but all US regions are improving consistently by this metric, with only Canada lagging among those we track. Fly market visitors lead the way here as well.

April 27 - May 3 - Organic search sessions have increased in recovery speed slightly, rising 22% over the past week (2.9% per day). While the Fly market has had the best YoY growth so far (or least bad fall), in the past week, drive-market users (between 1 and 4 hours away from the destination) have really begun to pick up. Insofar as driving vacations are most realistic and require less planning, this is an encouraging sign that actual travel may pick up soon.

May 4 - 10 - Organic search sessions growth flattened last weeks as well, declining 2% point to point. Notably, this traffic returned to a Saturday peak for the first time since the shutdown, which was the normal pattern before. Fly-market traffic continues to rise despite stagnation in other segments, and the South, where organic fly-market traffic is now well into YoY growth, leads the way.


Paid Website Traffic

2020 traffic first dipped below 2019 levels on March 10 and appear to have stabilized down 64% year over year.


Paid Traffic1 is limited to channels that can be clearly identified as paid sources by Google Analytics. These channels include paid search, display ads and other paid advertising.

March 11 - March 19 - Paid traffic to DMO websites saw a -76.6 percent decrease as DMOs began turning off or reducing paid media campaigns.

April 12 - April 19 - Paid sessions have fallen farther than other channels as DMOs have reasonably decided to save their budgets for a time when users are able to book travel with confidence. With such a low floor to rise from, paid search traffic has begun to rise a little faster than organic sessions, up 41% over the last week. Now may be a good time to prepare paid campaigns to place your destination in front of newly hopeful travelers.

April 20 - April 26 - Having been reduced to almost zero, paid search sessions have plenty of room to grow and are doing so. Driven largely by a few southern destinations turning their paid campaigns back on, overall paid search sessions grew by 7% per day and 58% overall over the past week. Intelligently, the DMOs reengaging with paid search are focusing on fly market visitors who might be planning now for post-shutdown travel.

April 27 - May 3 - Once, again, Paid Search sessions grew faster than other segment last week, as more and more DMOs turn this channel back on. Growth was 29% (3.7% per day) for this metric, with the American South continuing to lead the charge by an ever-growing margin. The West and Midwest are starting to creep up as well, though.

May 4 - 10 - Paid traffic rose just 0.5% between May 3 and May 10, with every geographic region in our study looking flat. DMOs still have not turned traffic back on for local markets, focusing instead on drive and fly markets. Since this traffic is often focused around events and in-market topics, it makes sense to wait for greater easing of social distancing to pursue it.


Destination Booking Trends

The following charts are updated weekly and use a sample set of more than 230 destinations. Depending on your connection speed, it may take several seconds for the data to load.

Lodging Searches


After a steep decline that began at the end of February, daily searches bottomed out on April 4, showing an 85% decline in daily searches. Since then, searches have increased by 276% into early May. However, even though searches have been increasing, May still shows a 64% decrease in searches year-over-year (YOY).


Lodging Referrals


March 20 showed an 81% decrease in daily referrals YOY. Since March 20, referrals have stabilized and have increased by nearly 426% through early May; However, even though referrals are increasing, May still shows a 28% decrease in referrals YOY.


Booking Window


As searches and referrals have been impacted, so has the booking window. On February 28, visitors were searching 91 days out on average, which quickly declined to 60 days out on March 13, signaling visitors may have been rushing to book something sooner. That changed through April 5, when people started looking at trips 122 days out and searching for trips around early August. Since April 5, the booking window has been shortening and May shows comparable booking windows to 2019 where people are currently looking at trips 68 days out, targeting the middle to end of July.


Length of Stay


The length of stay has also been impacted. March showed an average length of stay of 4.4 days compared to 4.1 days for the previous year - a 7% longer stay. April showed a 17% increase from 4.09 in 2019 to 4.8 in 2020. And May 2020 is currently showing an 11% longer stay from 4.04 in 2019 to 4.5 in 2020.


Announcements

Our year-to-date analysis shows three dates as significant inflection points for DMO web traffic:

  • February 26
    • White House holds first press briefing on the coronavirus outbreak. 
  • March 11
    • WHO declares novel coronavirus outbreak to be a pandemic.
    • White House announces restrictions on travel from Europe.
  • March 13
    • The United States declares a national emergency.

Source: Simpleview