TRAVEL AND HOSPITALITY
Keep it simple and diversify your traffic sources
travel and hospitality Overview
Key conversion rate insights for travel and hospitality
Travel and hospitality landing pages often have to appeal to visitors on a personal level. We’re not talking about boring B2B software companies here—we’re talking about flights, luxurious hotels or resorts, vacations, and more. That means that every detail matters, and small changes can have a big difference on your average conversion rate.
After doing a ton of analysis on travel and hospitality trends and benchmarks, we’ve curated our best tips and insights for digital marketers. Whether you’re looking for the latest industry trends or are trying to increase online hotel bookings, you’ll walk away with clear next steps for higher-converting campaigns. We’ve shared everything from where you should invest your paid media budget to how to write your highest-converting landing page copy.
In addition to conversion benchmarks for travel and hospitality overall, you’ll find benchmark data for subcategories like accommodations, food and beverage, and transportation and travel services.
Now let’s get into what the data says you should (or shouldn’t) be doing to boost your conversion rates.
You have to work hard for results on paid social
Paid social is a fairly low performer, with paid search performing nearly twice as well and email performing over three times as well.
Don’t place all your bets on one search engine
If you can believe it, Yahoo’s median CVR is 49.2% higher than Google’s. Still, both Google and Bing have great performance potential.
Short, simple copy is more important here than almost any other industry
The data tells us that keeping landing page copy short and reducing the number of difficult words is essential in the travel and hospitality industry.
Accelerate results with simple CRO
Access the full Conversion Benchmark Report for detailed industry benchmarks, in-depth conversion rate insights, top-performing channels, and more.
KEY INSIGHT: INDUSTRY SUBCATEGORIES
Travel and hospitality landing pages convert at 4.8%—below the all industries baseline
The median conversion rate for travel and hospitality landing pages is 4.8%, which is roughly 37% lower than the 6.6% baseline for all industries. This is heavily influenced by the accommodations subcategory, which converts at just 3.7%, while transportation, food services, and travel services pages all convert well above 10%.
Digging into the details further, the transportation and travel services subcategory performs best with a median conversion rate of 14.8%, and the majority of pages converting at a minimum of 6.7%.
Conversion rate by industry subcategory
Factor in average conversion value before making big decisions
Given that accommodations are often higher-ticket items, lower conversion rates could be due to longer buying cycles, return visits waiting for rates to go down, or simply just increased friction based on price. Before you make major changes to your pages to chase a conversion rate more in line with the median, consider if the page is still delivering high value conversions.
Don’t skip the conversion best practices on your accommodations pages
Lower conversion rates for accommodations pages could be due to a complex user experience on the page, information overload, unclear calls to action, or another controllable factor. If your conversion rates are hurting, check out our breakdown on conversion centered design to make sure you’re not holding yourself back by missing easy fixes.
KEY INSIGHT: OVERALL TRAFFIC CHANNELS
Email is the top performing channel at 10.8%, with paid search next at 6.3%
Paid social converts roughly 3x worse in travel and hospitality than the all industries benchmark (12%). Paid search and email also convert at a lower rate than the benchmarks, but the divide is more significant for paid social.
This could speak to this being an industry built on loyalty and high purchase intent (last minute trip anyone?), which may help explain why email and paid search are top performing traffic channels.
Conversion rate by traffic channel group
Travel isn’t usually a spur-of-the-moment decision
Building on the possible reasons why paid social isn’t a top performing channel, paid social is often focused on taking action right away. Since most travel plans are made well in advance, that “baked-in” urgency isn’t always there.
On the flipside, paid search is all about reaching potential customers when they’re actively showing intent to take action. For example, the chances of converting someone who just typed “all-inclusive resorts in Punta Cana” into Google will be higher than someone sitting on their couch scrolling Instagram.
KEY INSIGHT: PAID SEARCH TRAFFIC CHANNELS
Surprisingly, Yahoo has converted 49% better than Google in travel and hospitality
Paid search visitors coming from Yahoo convert at a median conversion rate of 10.3%, while visitors from Google convert at just 6.9%. The performance range for Google and Bing is fairly similar as well, which means there’s also solid conversion potential on Bing when executed right.
The data suggests that Yahoo and Bing are both viable paid search traffic sources. Even if you’re skeptical, don’t just bury your head in the sand and put 100% of your paid search budget in Google. This is a perfect opportunity to run tests across each channel. Sure, maybe Google will end up being your top converter. But you also might unlock another channel or two with less competition and a greater return on ad spend.
Conversion rates by paid search traffic sources
Don’t write off Yahoo as some ancient channel no one uses anymore
We get it. It’s easy to do. Google is massive and feels like the place to be, while Yahoo feels like it’s been stagnant for decades. The truth is, Yahoo ads are still converting incredibly well in the travel and hospitality industry.
The majority of visits from Yahoo that we analyzed were converting above 8.4%, while the low bar for Google ads was just 2%. This suggests that paid search ads on Yahoo are actually fairly stable.
KEY INSIGHT: SOCIAL TRAFFIC CHANNELS
Instagram ads convert 2x better than the next best social network
Paid traffic from Instagram is converting at 7.4%, while Facebook (3.8%) and Snapchat (1.3%) are both lagging behind.
Overall, paid social isn’t the highest converting traffic source in the travel and hospitality industry, but if you are running paid social campaigns—Instagram should be a central piece of the puzzle.
Conversion rate by paid social traffic sources
Focus on awareness building with paid social campaigns
Since the data suggests paid social visitors aren’t as likely to convert as most industries, consider zooming out and using paid social as an awareness-building tool. This way you won’t be solely evaluating performance based on whether an instant conversion did or did not happen.
KEY INSIGHT: MOBILE VS. DESKTOP
Desktop traffic converts 10.4% better than mobile, but mobile drives nearly 4x more traffic
In travel and hospitality, average conversion rates are still higher on desktop (18.1%) than mobile (16.4%). But as we’ve seen across all industries, far more traffic is still coming from mobile devices than desktop, meaning mobile-first optimization needs to be a priority.
Conversion rates for mobile vs. desktop visitors
KEY INSIGHT: READABILITY
Simple, shorter copy performs best—especially in travel and hospitality
Simple copy outperforming complex copy is a trend we’ve seen across all industries, but the contrast is especially high in travel and hospitality. Tolerance for difficult words is particularly low, relative to what we see in other industries.
5th to 7th grade copy converts over 2x better than all other difficulty levels
As reading difficulty increases, median conversion rate decreases. The contrast is especially stark when we compare the 5th to 7th grade bucket (12.8%) to all other levels above it. In simple terms, aim for a 5th to 7th grade reading difficulty level with your copy—which is about the same reading level as Harry Potter.
Conversion rates by reading ease score
Simple is typically best, but this could vary by industry subcategory
Funny enough, landing page copy written at a professional reading level (5.5%) converts at a similar level to copy written at an 8th and 9th grade reading level (5.8%). While copy written at a lower reading level typically performs best, professional-level copy may perform better in travel industry subcategories where a higher degree of trust and expertise is expected. As always, it’s worth A/B testing.
Aim for around 400 words, with the ideal word count range being 200-750 words
Simple copy is best, but too much copy—even if it’s simple—can also hold you back. The sweet spot we found is between 200-750 words.
Difficult words—words with three syllables or more—also significantly impact conversion rates, and the travel and hospitality industry has one of the lowest tolerances (meaning you have to use fewer difficult words than most).
Conversion rates word count and number of difficult words
Use an AI copywriting tool to help you tighten up long or complex copy
If you think your page is too long or too complex, you don’t necessarily have to do all of the trimming and simplifying manually. Try using the “summarize” function in Unbounce’s AI copywriting tool, Smart Copy, to shorten longer paragraphs into digestible chunks.
TRAVEL AND HOSPITALITY
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