April 20, 2020– The most common assumption these days is that domestic travel will recover quicker than the international one. But what does the data really show us when it comes to metasearch?
We can see the conversion rates for domestic traffic are higher than the international ones in the last few weeks. This is a predictable behavior. However, there is a noticeable increase in clicks from international travel intentions. These clicks do not convert with the same pace as domestic travel, but they certainly represent an increased demand.
Domestic and international traffic are almost equal in the last two weeks, while the bookings are strongly dominated by domestic markets.
The traffic that we are witnessing in the last 2 weeks, coming from international destinations travelers, is intended for a lead time of over 100 days. That means there is a certain increase in demand for outbound travel for 3-4 months from now.
So what is the current demand for international travel? Analyzing all the metasearch traffic by searched hotel locations, we can see the following average lead times by region and most searched length of stays. Combining these findings, we can adjust the available bid multipliers to make sure to capture this demand.
