Latest Research

Destinations

U.S. Experiential Traveler Trends 2018: Annual Survey on Traveler Behavior, Motivations and Preferences

The data collected from our second annual Experiential Traveler Survey presents a deep dive into the mindset of the modern traveler. We dig into their values, attitudes, travel behavior, and more.

October 2017

Destinations

Key Emerging Outbound Travel Markets 2017

Emerging markets are taking over outbound travel. Economic growth is increasing living standards across the world and outbound travel is growing along. International Travel Expenditure is now shifting from a handful of countries who have historically made up most of the outbound travel to emerging markets.

October 2017

Technology

A Deep Dive Into Priceline’s Competitive Position in Travel 2017

Priceline dominates the online travel industry. It quietly goes about its business and continuously puts up strong results year after year, turning a once-beleaguered near-dot-com-bust into one of the most successful technology companies in the world.

September 2017

Business Travel

The State of Conferences and Events 2017

The meetings and events sector is evolving at a rapid pace. Pioneering events like South by Southwest and C2 are raising event attendees' expectations, putting pressure on organizers to design more engaging experiences at events of all shapes and sizes. Meanwhile, new types of event technology like artificial intelligence and personalization tools offer new opportunities (and challenges) for meeting planners. This report investigates the state of today's conference and event sector, and examines how organizers should look to evolve their own event strategies in response in the years ahead.

August 2017

Online Travel

A Deep Dive Into Ctrip and the China Online Travel Market 2017

As the Chinese economy has grown and opened up to the West, both domestic leisure and outbound travel have ramped significantly. At the same time, the country is still in the early stages of moving bookings from offline to online. A growing travel market and increased adoption of online bookings is a potent recipe for growth at Ctrip and the industry as a whole.

July 2017

Online Travel

The State of Consumer Payments in Travel 2017

The leather wallet is facing increasing competition from digital alternatives. In this report we explore the types of innovations shifting the payments ecosystem and identify how early adopters have been able to leverage new payment systems to drastically cut operating costs while giving consumers a better payment experience.

June 2017

Online Travel

A Deep Dive Into TripAdvisor’s Competitive Position In Travel 2017

TripAdvisor's bold platform-driven approach to online travel tells us a lot about where the market is headed.

June 2017

The State of Loyalty in Hospitality 2017

For today's hospitality brands, loyalty programs are as much about repeat customers as they are about controlling distribution costs. Often times that means strategy at the property level, rather then at the brand level.

May 2017

Distribution

2017 Outlook on Hotel Direct Booking

This report analyzes the state of hotel distribution with a focus on direct booking. Rather than taking the view that it’s a booking war, we believe the landscape is far more nuanced where hotels need to take a holistic approach with their distribution channels. Readers will gain insight from our interviews with over 20 executives across the hotel and online travel ecosystem along with the results from our survey of 370 hotels around the world, which was powered by Skift and Trivago.

May 2017

Marketing and Media

The State of Destination Marketing 2017

This report looks deep into the current state of destination marketing, with a particular focus on current and developing content marketing, digital advertising and data analytics strategies. Skift Research Annual Subscribers also gain access to our 2017 Digital Destinations Survey full results. We collected over 300 responses from destination marketing organizations worldwide to assess budget, spend on marketing, reported return on investment on advertising platforms, and other metrics. The data sheet is a downloadable Excel file a full breakout of results from this 35 question survey (Annual Subscribers only).

April 2017

Online Travel

European Venture Investment Trends in the Travel Industry 2017

Europe has traditionally been a very active player in travel. Yet lack of funding, market fragmentation and other factors have held it back from producing global corporations. Nevertheless, Europe is finally warming up to the American-style, risk big and risk early venture investment culture that has given birth to so many tech megabrands out of Silicon Valley.

March 2017

Marketing and Media

The State of Content Marketing in Travel 2017

Content marketing has evolved from a novelty into the mainstream of the travel industry. Not only are more travel marketers creating content as part of their broader advertising strategies, they’re also spending more to produce it. But as more travel brands ramp up content marketing initiatives, there are challenges, including how to measure the ROI of such programs, dealing with influencers, and determining how to create content in a cost-efficient manner. Which content strategies are gaining traction with travel brands in 2017 as they look to evolve their efforts in the year to come?

March 2017