Summer 2022 - What App Data reveals about Germans' vacation plans
Advertising for city trips, price comparison for beach vacations, shopping for camping equipment - the topic of vacation is fully present in people's minds in the summer of 2022, despite current world events. In a recent study, we analyzed activities and content around the topic "vacation" from real in-app smartphone usage data and looked at advertising, browsing, and shopping behavior.
The in-app behavior of 645 German smartphone owners was recorded and analyzed over a period from February 1, 2022 to July 13, 2022. For this purpose, the participants voluntarily installed the Murmuras app, which collects data relevant to consumption and advertising.
Key-Takeaways
- More than 70% of the participants have seen at least one vacation ad in social media apps.
- Booking.com reached the most subjects with vacation ads and is also the most visited website and vacation app.
- Nearly one in four participants search on Google for topics related to "vacation" - most searches are between April and May.
Time for vacation means time for advertising
Companies want to appeal to those interested in vacation and are fighting for reach on social media. Over 70% of all study participants have seen at least one holiday-related ad* on Facebook, Instagram or TikTok. More than 10,500 holiday-related ad impressions were achieved in the sample, with an average of 17 per participant. The company with the highest reach in the sample is Booking.com, with over 12% of all participants seeing at least one ad from the online giant, followed by FeWo-direkt with 10% and ab-in-den-urlaub with 7%. But it's not just the big comparison portals that advertise on the subject of vacation. Brands such as Deutsche Bahn, Tropical Islands and Lidl-Reisen can also be found in the Top 10.
Vacation planning often takes place in Google
While companies want to convince social media user with vacation ads, a large part of vacation planning takes place in Google. 22% of all study participants actively search for topics related to "vacation". Most searches occur between April and May - potentially the time for planning summer vacation. The content varies greatly. Transactional keywords such as "city hotel Amsterdam," as well as informational searches, for example, "wie viel geld mit in den ägypten urlaub nehmen?“" or "coronaregegeln aktuell flughafen hannover" can be found.
Travel Apps gain Importance
The most visited websites in the mobile browser are Booking.com (17% of participants), followed by schulferien.org (13%), Airbnb.de (9%) and fewo-direkt.de (8%). Research in the smartphone browser remains important, but significantly more study participants are turning to the apps of popular travel providers. The Booking.com App is used by almost twice as many smartphone users as the company's website, at around 32%. For Airbnb, the ratio of web to app is balanced with about 10% of users each. What exactly happens within the apps can be analyzed with the Competitor App Comparison from Murmuras.
Shopping for camping vacation
Whether people travel to far destinations or stay at home, Amazon offers them a wide selection of products for summer vacation. Products that are viewed in a vacation context can be found especially in the categories garden, sports & fitness and toys. These include, above all, various camping items such as air mattresses, hammocks, tents, hiking backpacks and travel bags.
Where is the Journey going? Vacation Journey on the smartphone
Across the large number of data points collected, trends in the vacation journeys of smartphone users can be identified. In our sample, for example families plan to spend their summer vacation in the southern German states or Austria. For accommodations, both hotels and vacation homes are compared on the travel portals described above, but also directly via the company websites. Relaxing as well as action spots around the vacation destination play both an important role when choosing the vacation destination.
Conclusion
Whether on social media, online shopping or browsing - the desire to go on vacation can be seen in all smartphone usage behavior. Accordingly, travel planning is increasingly shifting to mobile. Analyzing the mobile customer journey across all apps is therefore becoming more and more important.
If you are interested in details and more information from the study results, please feel free to contact us. More details can be found here.
*Note: The following holiday-related terms were used for the analysis: Urlaub, Ferien, reisen, Fewo, last minute, Hotel, Camping, Flug, Flüge, buchen, wandern.