Travel industry experiences decline in paid search: Hitwise

The percentage of travel websites’ search traffic that comes via paid clicks has declined over the last 12 months in the UK.

From 25.4 percent in March 2008, it has declined to 21.7 percent in March this year. 

In particular, websites in the agencies category (which includes both traditional and online players such as Expedia) are most reliant on paid search traffic, but have also experienced the steepest decline over the last 12 months, according to an analysis by Hitwise. 

The declines in the transport (i.e. airlines, trains, car hire, etc.) and destinations and accommodation categories (which includes both hotel aggregator provider sites) sectors have been less severe – although both are less reliant on paid search than the agencies category. 

The percentage of the travel sector’s overall traffic that comes from paid search declined from 11.6 percent in March 2009 to 9.3 percent in March 2009.

The biggest impact has been on the agencies sector, which experienced a drop from 20.6 percent to 14.4 percent. While this has been party offset by an increase in the amount of natural / organic search traffic the industry receives, it has still contributed to an overall decline in traffic from search engines. In March 2008, 41.1 percent of agencies’ upstream traffic came from search; by March 2009 this had declined to 37.9 percent.

Overall, the amount of traffic that online retailers receive from paid search – i.e. from sponsored or paid for links on search engines has fallen over the last 12 months. 

During March 2009, 8.9 percent of all UK Internet visits to online retailers came from a paid search listing, down from 10.1 percent in March 2008. 

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