Expedia and Travelocity Are Soaring High with Word of Mouth and Social Media Conversations
Engagement Labs' TotalSocial(R) Rankings of Top Online Travel Agents and other Travel Sites Reveals Offline and Online Consumer
Conversation Trends
NEW YORK, NY --(Marketwired - January 17, 2018) - It's no secret that Americans
love to travel. In fact, direct spending by resident and international travelers in the U.S. averaged $2.7
billion a day in 2016. With such a large and robust market comes increased competition from a handful of online travel agents
and top travel sites that seek to provide travel services to discount-hungry consumers. To help brand marketers for OTAs and
other top travel sites better understand what consumers are saying in both their online and offline worlds, Engagement Labs has released its latest TotalSocial® rankings of
the top-performing OTA brands in the U.S.
The report looks at how each travel site performed in social conversations over the past six months and compared them to a
previous ranking of the top OTA brands in June 2017. According to the analysis, most online travel websites tend to perform better in
offline (face-to-face) conversations when compared to online (social media), even though each of these brands operate
online. In fact, the only website whose performance runs counter to this rule is Kayak. The Company's online scores were higher
than its offline scores.
The analysis is unique in that it combines offline and online consumer conversations, and is based on Engagement Labs'
proprietary TotalSocial data, which continuously measures the most important drivers of brand performance in terms of social
media and word of mouth conversations.
According to Engagement Labs, Expedia, which was previously ranked second, moved into the number one spot in the ranking and
surpassed TripAdvisor. The shift was fueled by Expedia's increase in online volume, which means that consumers are talking more
about the OTA in social media conversations. In August, the company hired its new
CEO, Mark Okerstrom, whose plans include emphasizing its travel agent and customer service offerings.
While Expedia rose to the top of the list, TripAdvisor fell to number two in the ranking, due to a steep decline in its online
and offline influence scores. Engagement Labs defines influence as how well the brand connects with the everyday influencers who
have the largest social networks in both the offline and online worlds.
Travelocity, which moved up from its previous spot at number four to third in the ranking, experienced an uptick in offline
sentiment -- which means that consumers are having more positive face-to-face conversations about the brand. The travel website
gained an edge and saw significant ROI through its unique email marketing campaign that offered $400 vacation packages to its customers. The company also recently launched
a campaign in partnership with popular online dating app Tinder, "Be
My Gnomie," targeting millennials and offering a 10-day Caribbean trip for two.
"With so much competition among travel websites and booking tools, it's no wonder that the top OTA brands are increasingly
fueling face-to-face conversations," said Ed Keller, CEO, Engagement Labs. "Travelocity is a great example of a brand that saw a
boost in its offline scores, particularly in offline sentiment, after launching several marketing campaigns to better engage its
customers -- proving that smart marketing tactics will not only resonate with consumers, but can improve a brand's ROI."
Another OTA that experienced a decline in the rankings is Hotels.com, which dropped to fourth from the third spot. The hotel
booking website saw a decline in both offline and online sentiment and influence -- demonstrating that consumers are not speaking
as positively about the brand as they were six months ago during the previous analysis. In addition, Engagement Labs identified
that another area for improvement is the brand's ability to engage everyday consumer influencers both online and offline.
To learn more about Engagement Labs and how to increase your brand's word of mouth in real life and online, reach out at:
totalsocial@engagementlabs.com.
About Engagement Labs
Engagement Labs (TSX VENTURE: EL) provides the world's leading brands with a unique and
powerful data and technology solution to drive sales growth and improve marketing ROI. Our TotalSocial® technology
combines online social media listening metrics with the world's only ongoing measurement of offline word-of-mouth conversations
into a single dashboard, to provide marketers with the ability to measure performance, diagnose areas of weakness and opportunity
and identify specific strategies and tactics to increase sales and improve marketing ROI. TotalSocial is an "always-on"
proprietary scoring system, based on the most important drivers of brand performance: Volume, Sentiment, Brand Sharing and
Influence. TotalSocial tracks 500 brands across 16 major industry categories within the U.S., and 350 brands across 18 industry
categories in the UK.
To learn more visit www.engagementlabs.com / www.totalsocial.com.
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