Mobiles to Drive 90% Of Airline, Hotel Bookings in India by 2022: Facebook-KPMG

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With more and more Indians using phones for shopping experiences, well-nigh nine in 10 airline ticket purchases and hotel bookings will be mobile influenced in the country by 2022 — creating a $19 billion and $12 billion sales opportunity for airline and hotel brands respectively, a Facebook-KPMG report revealed on Wednesday.

Nearly half of the total consumer loss in airline ticket purchases (11 percent out of 23 percent) and hotel bookings (16 percent out of 32 percent) is on account of media friction (consumer drop-off from their purchase journey).

In fact, the mobile can help airline and hotel brands tap into a potential sales opportunity of $nine billion and $2 billion by reducing media friction, the report added.

"At Facebook, we desire to help brands convert amend by connecting better with their consumers. Our latest report aims at assisting travel brands and marketers in designing relevant mobile marketing strategies, which can help them reduce friction in consumers' path to purchase and consequently increase sales," said Pulkit Trivedi, Director, Facebook India.

India currently has over 400 million smartphone users and over 700 million feature phone users.

Additionally, mobile-influenced journeys are 24 per cent shorter for airline ticket purchases and nineteen per cent shorter for hotel bookings than offline-influenced journeys, said the report which is the fourth in the series under the Facebook program "Naught Friction Hereafter".

Authored by KPMG in Bharat and based on the primary research and insights from a survey conducted by Nielsen, the report defines frictions at each stage of the travel purchase journey and highlights the significant role mobile and Facebook tin play to influence Indian travellers' buy journeys.

In airline ticket purchases, nearly lxx percentage of men are impacted by the friction, leading to dropouts early on in the purchase journey.

"Nigh men believe that offer communication shared past the brands are either not articulate or don't capture sufficient details," the findings showed.

Women, nevertheless, seek more information and assistance with the purchase as they are likely to ignore advertisements on offline mediums such as impress and radio.

In hotel bookings, lack of "relevant ads" and "clear telephone call to action" are top friction areas for both men and women.

"It has become critical for brands to appoint with travellers with 1 comprehensive message and all the information they expect, in a timely fashion. Whatever disruption in the journeying impacts the buy decision of the traveller," said Arvind Gupta, Head-Direction Consulting, KPMG in Bharat.

Co-ordinate to Ashish Karnad, Executive Director, Marketing Effectiveness, Nielsen India, the report will not merely give advertisers and consumers the current category mural but also provide a bird's eye view on the possible opportunities being missed by marketers due to media friction.