Blogs

What do you think the most immediate post vacation activity is?

It’s not paying the bills, but is, in fact, posting photos to a social network: 76% of us do that first thing after we unpack.

Does this matter? Yes, because the travel business has never been better, says Hotel Marketing.com. The savvy web site predicts $162 billion in revenues for 2012, up 74% since 2007.

And Social Media is playing a major role in upping these numbers.

Consider, says Hotel Marketing, that more than half of all travelers changed their plans after researching their trips on social media sites. More impressively, perhaps, 50% of travel companies say direct bookings have come from social media sites...an unthinkable number a few short years ago.

All Twitter has a cool infographic that vividly demonstrates the collective influence social media sites have on generating travel and travel business.

Key points:

• Eighty-seven percent of travelers used the Internet for most of their travel planning

• Thirty-one percent watched travel videos; 43% read reviews; 16% posted reviews and 45% used the Internet to source trip ideas

Which sites exert the biggest influence on travelers? Well, it seems that Facebook is the winner, in that 70% of us update our Facebook status, while on vacation and 58% “liked” Facebook pages specific to a vacation.

And 46% of travelers check into a location via Facebook or Foursquare while traveling.

Interestingly, Moonlight Marketing  refers to a Cornell University study that says next to our family and close friends, reviews by strangers are trusted much more than anyone thought possible. We think that may change; that review sites will give way to sites of like-minded people who share our interests and preferences in travel, and will be more specific to travel than, say Facebook is.

In the meantime check out All Twitter’s fun infographic here.