More to online activity than meets the eye
Marketers in the travel trade will be familiar with the saying: “Half my advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.”

That’s why the transparency of online models, such as pay-per-click advertising, has proven a refreshing exception to the rule, with marketers judging return on investment by monitoring the level of bookings generated against budget spent. The latest research from Google, however, suggests that marketers are underestimating the impact of online activity. Travel purchasing habits tracked by Google reveal that only one in eight people browsing a website end up booking online. This means the channel could be generating up to seven times more bookings than indicated by online revenues – and those websites that are providing bookings for your hotel are highly likely to be producing significant numbers of additional offline bookings as well.