The US Travel Industry 2016: Digital Ad Spending Forecast and Trends

Executive Summary

Travel marketers in the US invested $4.93 billion in paid digital media in 2015. This year, those marketers will increase their spending by 15.4% to reach $5.69 billion, an indication of rising US travel sales boosted by the strong dollar and an increasingly competitive landscape.

• Online travel agencies—including market leaders Priceline.com and Expedia—will account for a significant portion of category spending and dominate a field that also includes hotels, airlines, cruise lines, rental car companies, destination marketing organizations and tour operators.
• Search will account for a large share of that spending, particularly because of the industry’s focus on direct-response-driven ad formats. eMarketer predicts that paid search will make up nearly 55% of category spending this year.
• Mobile advertising is another area of critical investment for many travel marketers. The increasing time spent with mobile devices, along with growing sales on those devices, is pushing mobile ad spending ever higher, amounting to over 63% of all travel industry outlays in 2016.
• The growing migration to data-driven programmatic ad buying techniques is revolutionizing industry investment in digital display, making it much more efficient.