In a consumer research survey conducted by Accenture, it was found that consumers wanting to book travel are overwhelmed by the volume of information and advertising, which makes it stressful for them to book their own travel. Three quarters of them say they abandoned their flight purchases
Accenture’s Empowered Consumer report claimed that travellers found booking a flight nearly as stressful as getting a mortgage and that consumers felt less confident about booking a hotel than they did about buying a car. The survey was conducted in 12 countries with over 19 000 participants.
As online booking becomes more available, it is the number of options and the volume of information that confuse travellers.
Seventy-three percent of consumers said they felt inundated by too much choice, while 75% said they were bombarded by advertising. As a result of these high levels of stress, 74% of consumers said they had abandoned their purchase in the last months of 2023.
“Planning a trip can often feel disjointed and overwhelming as consumers grapple with the huge incoming volume of content and advertising from competing travel brands and influencers,” Emily Weiss, Senior MD and Global Lead of Accenture’s Travel industry practice, told TravelPulse.
Duncan Bonnet, Director of the AfricaHouse research consultancy, agreed that a travel agent’s insider knowledge was a boon.
“Personally, if it’s business travel, I don’t book for myself. I have someone who does it for me,” he said. “When I went to China a few years ago I just outsourced that because I had no clue about anything. It’s such a huge and complex market so I got a travel agent to book everything for me.
“It’s also a matter of knowing which airlines fly to which destinations. You can no longer simply log on to SAA and know that there’s a flight available; you’re having to go through other airlines. So that has made the process more complex, especially when travelling around different parts of Africa. So, you just get somebody else to do it for you. If you’ve got a good travel agent it ends up being more efficient doing it that way instead of going back and forth yourself.”
Rodger Foster, CEO and MD of Airlink told Travel News: “We do find that more complex travel itineraries are dealt with by the travel trade. This is their speciality and passengers value their recommendations.”
But concerning the user experience of consumers on aviation booking websites, Foster said the Airlink team continued to take user-friendliness into account. “Before launching the website and accompanying mobile app, our team conducted a comprehensive review of airline and other online transaction sites around the world in order to identify what works best and what pitfalls to avoid.”
Carla da Silva, GM Sales, Marketing, eCommerce & Distribution of SAA said: “The customer does not want to be bombarded with too much info and loads of marketing when they are going through the decision-making involved in booking a flight.
“Although the SAA website serves a purpose, the airline knows 70% of its bookings come through the agent community. So we focus on that very community, directing our efforts to the trade. Agents sift out the marketing and deal with clients, giving them the information they most need.”
Monique Swart, founder of African Business Travel Association, said individuals booking directly would find themselves in a flood of information that could be overwhelming. “This has become a major problem, especially with AI predicting a lot of traveller preferences, and then using that information to bombard travellers with options.
“When it comes to companies or leisure travellers booking travel online via booking platforms as opposed to with a TMC or travel agent, one finds that this kind of excessive advertising and pushing of ‘preference based’ travel experiences is difficult if not impossible to control,” she said.
