Acxiom's latest research on travel marketing in a post-pandemic world

 

Customer intelligence company Acxiom just released the findings from a survey of 100 travel marketers designed to unpack how the industry is pivoting amid disruption, in addition to what travel marketers expect in the months ahead as the world recovers. Below are some of the top takeaways from the research, which included senior-level marketers at enterprise brands representing airlines and hotels, with $1B or more in annual revenue.

1. Marketers’ expectations for personal and business travel vary significantly
A plurality of respondents (42 percent) expect people will resume leisure travel at or near pre-pandemic levels in the next 6-12 months, while nearly one-in-four (24 percent) believe it will take 24 months or more, and only 2 percent expected leisure travel to fully resume in the next 0-6 months. Meanwhile, 52 percent of respondents believe business travel will resume sometime in 2021.

2. Travel marketers expect trends to shift in 2021, some of which are related to COVID-19 and some that not
For example, 62 percent of respondents expect Millennials and Gen-Z to command greater market share, while 61 percent expect hyper-personalization of messaging and marketing to increase in the industry. Meanwhile, 58 percent expect there to be a greater emphasis on mobile channels in travel marketing.

3. Travel organizations are already adjusting their marketing strategies for recovery – Employing a range of options to better understand their customers and meet their demands
Two-thirds (67 percent) are developing a deeper level of customer understanding through identity resolution and unified persona creation, and more than half (52 percent) are engaging in the personalization of messaging for individual circumstances and global context. Not only does this help improve the effectiveness of their marketing, but it could also help companies save on costs.

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