New research by travel association ABTA shows that an increasing number of travellers are booking holidays with tablets.
According to the research, one in four online bookers said they booked at least one getaway via a tablet compared to 18% in 2014. Despite the increase in tablet use, the use of mobile phones remains flat at 16% of online bookers.
ABTA’s Holiday Habits Report 2015 shows that the PC remains by far the most popular device for booking with 91% of online bookers using a PC or laptop when booking at least one holiday online in the past 12 months. While it remains dominant, its usage has dropped slightly from 93% last year as tablet usage has increased.
Generally, mobile phone booking has remained fairly steady across all age groups, but not grown. The research suggests this could be because people are finding the mobile phone booking experience more difficult than on a PC or tablet. Ease of use is cited as one of the key advantages of using a PC or tablet, with 77% of PC users and 58% of tablet users finding the booking experience easy, compared to only 41% of mobile phone users.
The findings suggest travel may be lagging behind other industries in mobile phone bookings. Ofcom’s 2015 Communications Market Report² found that 45% of the public use their smartphone to purchase online.
There is also a notable difference in mobile bookings for travel arrangements between age groups, with around a third (34%) of 16-24 year olds using mobiles to book compared to just 7% of those aged 45-54. This difference between travel and other industries may be due to the high value nature of travel transactions.
