The Digital Trends in the Travel and Hospitality Sectors report, produced by Econsultancy in partnership with Adobe, examines digital trends and evolving customer experience shaping the approach of digital marketers in the travel and hospitality sectors.

The research is based on a Q3 2017 global survey of more than 600 senior digital marketing and ecommerce executives, with respondents from online travel agencies, transportation companies, hospitality organizations and restaurants.

The report contrasts the four key sub-vertical respondents.

Key themes emerging from the research include:

  • Customer experience dominates the priorities of marketing executives in travel – it’s rated even more highly than customer acquisition in a ranking of business priorities for the next year.
  • Mobile experience/analytics is the top area of technology investment. Mobile sales are growing at breakneck pace, changing the marketing calculus for the next few years as executives scramble to figure out ways to translate the customer journey to an increasingly mobile experience.
  • First-party data is underutilized, while more than half of all orgs are effective at collecting first party data, a much smaller share is taking full advantage of what it has to offer. Integration between third (and even second) and first-party data is a further challenge many companies encounter.
  • Data security is a top concern for programmatic-buying organizations across verticals. Travel and hospitality organziations do a good job of collecting first-party data, but aren’t optimizing its use in programmatic campaigns, often due to concern over how to keep used data secure.