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ETC Country Reports

United States

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Country Overview

Consumer Behaviour

Connectivity

Mobile Devices

Social Networking and UGC

eCommerce

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About us

Contents

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COUNTRY OVERVIEW

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Country OverviewKey Facts

Population size: 317 473 000 !GDP (nominal): $ 16.724 trillion !Average salary: $ 4171/ month !Capital city: Washington !Currency: Dolar ($)

!• USA is the third largest country in world. !• According to the Telegraph, the USA has secured

its status as the most powerful economy for the next decade. !

• The biggest city in the country is New York. !• The USA is the largest importer of goods in the

world. !• Americans have the highest average

household and employee income among OECD nations. !

Key Links

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Facebook-USA/125296484157657

https://twitter.com/usa

http://www.usa.gov/

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CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR

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Consumer Behaviour

Consumer TrendsIn 2012, the Olympic Games, the US presidential elections and other significant events changed the way in which the US population is making use of digital. These changes are quite interesting and the future of digital is shaped by the ever changing consumer behaviour of the US population. The US digital landscape is influenced by the large growth in tablet and mobile sales. Consumers are increasingly making use of tablets and mobile and are adopting a multi-platform usage pattern. According to comScore, 1 in every 3 digital media minutes is spend on a mobile or tablet, this really is an astonishing change from previous years and a clear indicator of the future of digital consumer behaviour.  Desktop computers already play a minor role in digital and mobile and tablet growth is predicted to exceed as the US consumer is “embarking on a post PC paradigm” as already indicated by comScore in 2013.

minutes is spent on a mobile or a tablet device!

of every digital1 in 3

For US consumers, technology is an integral part of everyday live, meaning that they are using ICTs on a very regular basis. Research now showed that consumers’ online time in many countries is actually exceeding their offline time. This is a remarkable development and demonstrates the increasing importance of ICTs. In the US, Canada and other mature Internet markets, this is however, not the case yet, as US consumers are still spending the majority of their media time on TV, newspapers and radio (GlobalWebIndex 2013).

Future technology consumption

In 2012, US consumers spend a total of 2 hours and 19 minutes online every day and another 2 hours 21 minutes on mobile. Especially the increase in mobile to over 2 hours is incredible with both the time on smartphones and tablets increasing by over 47% and 44% respectively. The TV is the top media of choice as consumers spend around 5 hours each day watching television. Interestingly, traditional media such as newspapers and magazines are still used by consumers on a daily basis for 18 and 14 minutes respectively. Marketers need to know what kind of media is still used by North American consumers in order to be able to know on which medias to target potential target audiences (eMarketer 2013). !Looking at the time consumers spend online in more detail, research by Experian showed that for every hour that US consumers spend online, 16 minutes of that time are spent on social networking. Social is therefore one of the major online growth factors and the time spend on social networking sites is predicted to increase further in the future, especially with new social networks such as Tumblr, Pinterest and others establishing themselves and more consumers joining them. This is quite interesting and shows the variety of time that is being spent on different activities from shopping to entertainment, news and business (Experian 2013). !

Media time and consumption

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Media consumption

After looking at the time that consumers spend online, it is also crucial to take into consideration how this time is divided between desktop computers, mobile or tablets. Marketers need to understand on what users actually spend their online time on and through which devices this is happening in order to optimise the content. This ensures that the right content can reach and target the consumer at the right time, through the right device. Looking more closely at the different activities of consumers on the Internet and the time spent per hour for each activity can enlighten the way in which businesses should target their consumers more efficiently.  Consumers spend about 14 minutes per hour checking their emails using a mobile device. Mobile users also spend 9 minutes per hour on social networking. North Americans also spend time on other activities on their mobile are entertainment, shopping, travel and business and finance. !Interestingly, the time spent online via a desktop computer is much more focused on social networks with 27% of the total activities and 16 minutes per hour spent on social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. Entertainment is the second biggest activity accounting for around 15% and 9 minutes per hour (eMarketer 2013).

Devices Used to access the Internet by US consumer

Computer

Mobile phone

Tablet 17%

44%

79%

Source: eMarketer (2013)

In June 2012, there were 273,785,413 Internet users in the US. All online users in the Americas (North America, South America, Central America and the Caribbean) accounted for 22% of the world’s internet users, although the Americas only account for around 13% of the overall world population,  indicating that the overall penetration level is with 56% also a lot higher than the world average at 30%(InternetWorldStats 2012). In September 2013, Pew Internet Research revealed latest statistics on the demographics of internet users - 86% of American adults actually use the internet which is a considerably high number (Pew 2013). Consumer demographics are closely linked to the way in which consumers behave. In the US, there are a lot of changes happening regarding age groups. Seniors and teens are becoming increasingly the focus for tourism brands and they are targeting them more efficiently as these are now seen as influential and desirable consumer groups of tourism products and services.

Demographics

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However, the Internet makes it possible for large amounts of information to be available on tourism providers and services. This impacts on consumers’ loyalty that has decreased over the years with more and more consumers having large amounts of information at their disposal. 80% of teens own a computer and 23% of all teens aged between 13-17 own a tablet. Smartphones are also on the rise with 37% owning one at the moment. In the future, this hyper connected teens need to be watched by marketers as this generation will become of significant importance as soon as they are coming of age (Tnooz 2013).

The US consumer age profile is quite interesting to look at, as it gives marketers insights into the developments taking place in the US. Two age groups are most predominant in the US: the 18-34 years olds and the 45-64 years olds.  Millenials are 18-34 and also referred to as Generation Y comprising almost 80 million of the total US population. This consumer group is evenly split between males and females and also a quite diverse generation in terms of their race. As the first generation that comes of age in the new millennium, this group is very Internet savvy and Internet usage and consumption is integral to consumers’ every day lives. Millenials use the Internet to shop, network, socialise and watch television (eMarketer 2011).

US Consumer age profiles

US Population by age

65+ 13%

45 - 64 26%

35 - 44 13%

18 - 34!23%

12 - 17!8%

<11!16%

Source: eMarketer 2011

When looking in more detail at the way in which Millenials are using the Internet, social networks is one activity that almost all members of the age group are active on and videos are also viewed a lot online. Most of the US Millenials also have a Smartphone and are using mobile Internet, mobile commerce and location-based services. They are certainly at the forefront of embracing technologies.

US Millenials

US Internet users 18-34 in %

2011 2015

94%91%

US social media users 18-34 in %

2011 2015

94%91%

Source: eMarketer 2011

Similar high numbers are also the case for social network users: in 2011 86% of the total population are aged between 18-34 and by 2013 this number is forecasted to be 89%. US mobile Internet users aged 18-34 account for 62% of the overall population and by 2015 this number will further increase to 76%. So there are huge potentials in the US population in terms of future technology usage and adoption. Millenials are very present and familiar with everything digital; this means there are big opportunities for organizations to target them through digital media rather than traditional advertising. In general, this US age group seeks authenticity in the digital world and can only connect with brands that are authentic and have the same values as the individual consumers (eMarketer 2011).

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Throughout North America, including USA and Canada, the most popular web languages are English, Spanish and French. This is also due to the fact that the countries official language at a federal level is English for the United States and in Canada it is French and English. With North America’s history of having both Spanish and French explorers discovering the Americas, this makes the whole issue of web languages in North America more complex. In 2010, there were 37 million Americans speaking Spanish at home, which represents around 12.8% of the total US population (Huffington Post 2013).

Web languages in North America

In North America, particularly in the US, the Hispanic market is the largest minority segment and growing at a tremendous pace. There are over 52 million Hispanics in the US alone showing the potential of this young and vibrant demographic. With increasing buying power, Hispanics will play an essential role in the US’s future growth as an economy. Traditional Hispanic areas are California, Texas, the Southwest, Florida, New York and Chicago metro. In the US the idea that Hispanics will become part of the melting pot is still predominant. However, Hispanics actually show signs of culture sustainability, as 37% of Hispanic adults speaking English mostly when they were children actually learnt enough Spanish to become bilingual as adults. Through these efforts of keeping true to their roots, Hispanics also indicated the need and urge to read, watch and explore Spanish media. This is a very interesting finding and demonstrates the need for Spanish content even for Hispanics being fluent in English and Spanish (Nielsen 2012).

Web languages in the US

According to Nielsen’s research language is very important for Hispanics. 56% of Hispanic adults speak primarily Spanish at home. For marketers, Spanish is therefore a very important language to use to reach this large Hispanic market in the US. A mix of media and technology needs to be used to engage Hispanics responding to their language preferences. In digital, Hispanics are certainly an important market to consider and especially with changing consumption patterns, it is crucial to consider Spanish as a language for the North American market (Nielsen 2012).

Hispanic media consumption

Search engines are an integral part of the digital landscape as any search starts with opening a search engine. For many consumers in the US, search engines can deliver quick and easy searches according to a problem or question they have. Throughout the last couple of years, searches have moved away from being primarily made on desktop computers, to more and more searches conducted through a mobile or tablet device. This indicates that search is both used at home and on the go, and search engines continue to play an important role in this process. In 2013, the number of search engines will further increase and is predicted to surpass the 200 million mark. Of those people going online, a large proportion, 84% will use a search engine at least monthly. With the US being one of the main regions, that use the Internet, it is predicted that 2 out of 3 search engine users will be from the US (eMarketer2013). In the US, the search market is still dominated by Google as 2 out of every 3 searches is made through Google as a search engine. Microsoft Bing on the other hand increased their share in searches from 2011 to 2012, which meant a loss for Yahoo!. Both Ask Network and AOL are both growing but this only has minor impacts on the overall search engine landscape as Google still has overall dominance on the market. In terms of core searches, there was a decline of 3% in 2012 based on a decline of searches per searcher. Although the search market is relatively stable, search engines also experience the growing desire that the market evolves and consumers get an added value

Search engines

Source: comScore 2013

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Latest research from eMarketer revealed that in 2013, the number of search engine users will surpass 200 million this year. Most US consumers will use a search engine for a search at least once per month. During the last years, search has reached saturations and is a basic online activity or users in the US. However, the number of search engine users is still predicted to grow over the next years to a total of 222.8 million search engine users in 2017 (eMarketer 2013). !Looking more closely at the US search engine usage can give interesting information in terms of relating the information about search engine users to the amount of Internet users and the percentage of the population that will use a search engine. In 2012, 83.1% of Internet users made a search through a search engine. This is also the equivalent of 62.9% of the population indicating that search engine usage is an integral part of US consumer behaviours. In the upcoming years, this figure will slowly grow and is forecasted to reach 85% of Internet users in 2017 and 68.8% of the population. This indicates that there is still growth possible in the search landscape and there is still money to be made through search engines (eMarketer 2013).

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CONNECTIVITY

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Connectivity

Digital is an integral part of US consumers’ daily lives and businesses. Due to social media channels and networks such as Facebook or Linkedin stemming from the US, North America is considered the mother region of a variety of digital trends and innovations (comScore 2013). Internet access is considered by 93% of consumers within North America as the most important subscription in their household. It has certainly become an integral necessity of the American lifestyle (Deloitte 2013). !

Broadband Access

Internet Usage Smartphones and tablets are on the rise with sales continuing to increase in North America. Businesses worldwide also respond to this development by producing content appropriate and targeted at specific platforms. Monitoring internet use by platform from 2011 to 2013 is interesting, although changes across platform from mid 2011 to mid 2012 are still consistent with a 2% increase in each case.

What is very interesting to look at, is the fact that in the US, computers dropped in usage by 5% from mid 2012 to beginning of 2013. Smartphones also saw an increase of more than 8% and so did tablets with an increase of 4%. This is a confirmation of the fact that more and more consumers are moving on to purchase and use smartphones and tablets. In the future, it will be interesting to see which device will grow the furthest. In tourism, businesses are therefore responding to these changes by optimising content for a range of devices. Creating great content for tablets, smartphones and computers and driving consumer engagement are important parts of businesses responding to these changes (MediaBehaviorInstitute 2013).

Online visitation and consumer engagement are very important factors to consider for tourism. On average, consumers in North America are more engaged than other worldwide consumers. In 2012, US individual consumers spent an average of 43 hours per month online visiting websites and are the highest time worldwide. !

Media consumption

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subscription as the m o s t i m p o r t a n t subscription in their household!

consider Internet93%

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MOBILE DEVICES

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Mobile Devices

The worldwide digital landscape is shifting constantly and the U.S. has finally lost its dominant position as leading internet audience globally. It has been overtaken by other regions, mainly Europe and Asia-Pacific. In the early days of the internet (in the mid-90s) the U.S. held as much as 66% of the international online audience. Fast forward to 2012 and this situation has changed drastically. The U.S. now accounts for 13% of the global internet audience (14% for the North American region including Canada). That means an astonishing 87% of the world’s online audience come from outside the U.S. However, in terms of amount of time spent online through mobile devices North Americans are still clear leaders. Every visitor in the study spent an average of 42.8 hours online per month in 2012. Europe followed in second place with an average of 26.9 hours per internet user per month, but still lagged far behind North America. This can be compared to an overall global average of 24.7 hours per month in 2012 (comScore, December 2012). !

Mobile Internet use in North America Mobile Internet usage

Americans are going multi-platform and owning more tablets than ever before. The smartphone’s big brother emerged as a critical piece of the region’s digital landscape in 2012. Tablet penetration moved beyond the early adopters and into the early majority stage with 52.4 million Americans owning tablets by the end of 2012. More than a quarter (28%) of U.S. smartphone owners have also reported owning a tablet, highlighting the continuing trend for multi-platform usage patterns as more consumers go online using a variety of different platforms throughout the course of an average day. Additionally, almost 4 in 10 U.S. smartphone owners also have a second device, either a tablet, e-reader or other type of mobile device (comScore 2013).

US is a multi-platform device landscape

Average hrs of mobile Internet per person by region

US

Europe

Global 24.7

26.9

42.8

Share of Smartphone Subscribers Owninga Connected Device

Tablet

eReader

Handhelt 4%

10%

28%

Source for all statistics: comScore 2013

87%

13%

Mobile Internet Usage

rest of the world

US

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According to the very latest statistics from Pew Research, 34% of Americans over the age of 18 now own a tablet (Pew Internet, June 2013). This means that tablet use in this age group has nearly doubled compared to statistics from 2012; impressive growth when considering the devices only appeared on the scene around 3 years ago. !For comparison’s sake, in May 2010, only 3% of American adults owned a tablet device. In fact, tablets have now become so popular among U.S. consumers that industry analysts are predicting tablet sales will outstrip sales of PCs and laptops by the end of 2013 (BGR.com, May 2013). Tablet shipments in the U.S. are predicted to grow by 58.7% year on year to reach 229.3 million units in 2013.

Tablets

!!This is a huge increase from 2012’s figure of 144.5 million shipments. Additionally, the average price of a tablet is expected to decrease to $381; a 10.8% decline. This is attributed mainly to the rapid rise in popularity of low cost Android tablet devices. According to Pew, the demographic groups in the U.S. most likely to own tablets include those living in households earning at least $75,000 a year (56%), compared with lower income brackets, adults aged 35-44 (49%), compared with younger and older adults; and college graduates (49%), compared with adults with lower education levels (Pew Internet, June 2013).

Mobile web users, whether accessing the web via smartphones or tablets, have certain expectations about what makes a good mobile website. According to a study by Millward Brown, speed and display quality are two of the most important factors; with 64% of users saying a mobile site should load quickly; 53% saying it should display clearly on their mobile device; and 47% pointing out that the site should be easy to find via mobile search  (Millward Brown, November 2012).

Mobile ready web

In the U.S., apps dominate smartphone media use, accounting for 4 out of every 5 minutes spent on smartphones. Mobile web usage accounts for the remaining time. At the end of 2012, Facebook was in leading position among apps, used by 76% of the U.S. smartphone audience. Previously Google Maps was in the lead until October 2012, when it was discontinued as part of iOS6. Facebook also attracted the heaviest engagement from smartphone users, accounting for 23% of all time spent using mobile apps. Despite Facebook leading the app market, the remainder of the list was dominated by various apps from Google  (comScore, February 2013). The situation is reflected in the U.S. travel market, as shown by the below graph. Overall, although somewhat skewed by the immense popularity of the Google Maps app, U.S. mobile users are starting to prefer mobile travel apps over mobile web browsers. FlyDelta and Yahoo! Weather are just two examples of popular travel apps in the United States.

Mobile apps

Top Mobile Applications Ranked by Percent Reach of Smartphone Subscribers

Facebook

Google Maps

Google Search

Youtube

Cooliris

Yahoo! Messenger 32%

38%

46%

54%

66%

76%

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surpass desktop PC sales in the US

t a b l e t sales will2013

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SOCIAL MEDIA & UGC

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Social Networking & UGC

According to Nielsen’s Social Media Report 2012, time spent on mobile apps and the mobile web among US users accounts for 63% of the year on year growth in overall time spent using social networking. 46% of social network users say they use their smartphone to access social networks; and 16% say they connect to social networks using a tablet. With more connectivity than ever before, consumers have more freedom to use social networks anytime and anywhere (Nielsen, March 2012). !

Social Networking

Social media usage

Consumers who use mobile to access social media

54%46%

do not use mobile for social

use mobile for social

Source: Nielsen 2012

!Social networking has become more than just Facebook and Twitter, although these both remain highly popular. New contenders, such as image-based network Pinterest, are capturing the hearts and minds of US social media users. Indeed, Pinterest experienced the highest growth in 2012, boasting the largest year on year increase in unique users, and the most time spent on any one network across all internet access methods including PCs, mobile web, and apps (Nielsen, March 2012). Marketers should keep their eyes open for new social networks gaining unexpected ground and assess the feasibility of creating marketing strategies to fit these new channels. Source: Nielsen Source: Nielsen 2012

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Increasing numbers of US consumers are connecting to the internet for longer periods of time. Using a variety of devices, people continue to spend increasing amounts of time on the Internet. Time spent on PCs and smartphones increased by 21% between July 2011 and July 2012. App time more than doubled during this period as more smartphone owners entered the market and the number of available apps multiplied. Out of this overall internet use, the majority of people were spending their time using social networks compared to any other sites. In fact, 20% of the time spent by people who were using PCs was on using social networks, while 30% of people’s mobile time was spent on social networks. Facebook is highly influential as it is the most popular website across the whole of the US, with 17% of people’s online time spent using Facebook (Nielsen, March 2012).

Social Networking Patterns For US consumers, social networking is all about mobile, especially apps, with smartphone apps increasingly widely used to access social sites. App use now constitutes over a third of US consumers’ social networking time across both computers and mobile devices. Compared to last year, consumers increased their social networking app use time by 76%, spending more than 7 times longer on apps than on using the mobile web (Nielsen, March 2012).

Travel expectations for the US have shown great improvement – the highest increase since 2009 – with 33% of Americans planning to travel in 2013. This reflects the gradual recovery of the economy after the trials and tribulations of the past few years. 34% of Americans plan to spend more on travel in 2013 than they did in the past year. This is now on a par with pre-2008 financial crisis levels and represents an encouraging sign. Americans are travelling more in 2013 (Google, August 2012). Research from Google, in the 2012 Traveler Research Report, outlined how the average US traveller visits more than a dozen different websites during their trip planning process. More than 40% of travellers use multiple digital devices to carry out their research – from traditional desktop PCs (where use is in decline) to mobile and tablet devices (where use is rising strongly) (Google, August 2012). !Overall, 87% of US travellers use the internet for the bulk of their travel planning. The rise of social media has affected every industry and travel is no exception. In fact, because the travel industry depends heavily on word of mouth and the spread of opinions, social networks offer highly suitable platforms for promoting travel products and services.   But as already noted, this has to be implemented in a subtle, organic way. People of the social networking age have become less susceptible to traditional marketing messages. The majority of US consumers say they trust recommendations from friends and family above all other forms of advertising. So people can no longer just be spoken to; marketers must inspire them to speak out about products and services. Marketers hoping to spread their message to an international audience face an even bigger challenge, because different countries and regions show quite varied patterns of social network activity. !!

Travellers and Social Media

Source: Nielsen 2012

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Time Spend on Social Media

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eCOMMERCESale

!

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eCommerce

Despite the poor state of the U.S. economy overall with high rates of unemployment, the region’s e-commerce sector performed relatively well in 2012. According to comScore, the total U.S. e-commerce spending in 2012 reached $289.1 billion, which was an increase of 13% from 2011. Travel e-commerce spending grew 9% to $103 billion, while retail (non-travel) e-commerce spending jumped 15% to $186.2 billion in 2012 (comScore, February 2013). This encouraging growth has continued into 2013, according to the most recent data from comScore. E-commerce spending in the U.S. has risen by 11% in the first quarter of 2013, compared to the same time frame in 2012. This includes an 8% gain for the Travel category, which is of particular interest for our purposes here (comScore, February 2013). !

E-commerce Insights

Source: comScore 2013

In 2013, it has been predicted that nearly two-thirds of U.S. internet users will research their travel plans online.  As a result, there has been an increase in the popularity of specialised travel aggregators that provide online listings from both travel suppliers and online travel agencies. U.S. travellers seek out one-stop shops to compare different brands, products, packages and prices at an early stage in the buying process. Kayak.com is a hugely popular choice for U.S. online travel shoppers, as well as shoppers worldwide, with April 2013 estimates predicting  that total searches worldwide on Kayak will triple to 3.6 billion by 2019, up from 1.2 billion in 2012 (eMarketer, May 2013). !Although the majority of travel-related Kayak searches in the U.S. are for airlines,  hotel queries are actually increasing at a faster pace than airline queries. Hotel searches experienced a considerable surge, from 24 million in 2007 to 167 million in 2012: a compound annual growth rate of 48%. Additionally, hotel searches are considerably more lucrative than airline searches, with the former attracting $321 in distribution revenue per 1,000 s e a rc h e s , c o m p a re d w i t h $ 7 9 p e r 1 , 0 0 0 a i r l i n e searches (eMarketer, May 2013). !Data from Nielsen shows that travel websites were highly popular among U.S. internet users during 2012, with over half of surveyed internet users visiting travel websites in April of that year. The top site in the travel category was Google Maps, with 79 million unique U.S. visitors, followed by MapQuest with 29.6 million, and Yahoo! Local, with 15.2 million unique visitors. Visitors to Google Maps returned frequently to the site, visiting about 5 times each on average, and amassing well over 1 billion page views on the site (Nielsen, April 2012). In 2012 as a whole, travel e-commerce spending in the U.S. achieved a new record as it broke through the $100 billion barrier for the first time, according to Skift online travel magazine. Overall, airline websites were considerably more successful than hotel websites at attracting e-commerce and winning the race for growth (Skift.com, February 2013).

Travel Planning

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While e-commerce continues to perform well throughout North America, snatching market share away from traditional brick-and-mortar retailers, signs are also emerging that mobile commerce is beginning to affect the overall e-commerce landscape. In particular, smartphones have become important devices for “showrooming” behaviour, where shoppers use their phones to compare prices in-store, but end up actually buying the product via digital channels, such as Amazon. This behaviour is highly disruptive for established brick-and-mortar retailers. Showrooming has not yet become a widespread phenomenon yet, but it is definitely happening. Tablets are less likely to be used when comparing prices in store; probably due to their larger size and people’s lack of inclination to carry and use their tablet while out shopping. Tablets are more commonly used for directly making transactions. In the fourth quarter of 2012, comScore estimated that m-commerce transactions (from both smartphones and tablets) represented approximately 11% of the corresponding e-commerce spending. This is a considerable amount and m-commerce is well worth watching in 2013 and beyond (comScore, February 2013). !

Consumer Trends

The travel industry has always been an adventurous early adopter of new online tools and concepts, such as e-commerce booking engines. With the advent of opinion-sharing, social networked sites such as TripAdvisor, social media and the travel industry have become deeply interlinked. But the concept of social commerce as a tool that produces quantifiable rewards is not always clear.  A 2011 Euromonitor report pointed out that ‘measuring the impact of social media advertising is difficult due to the impossibility of identifying the impact of the different factors. Also, evaluation is often of a rather qualitative nature.’ The consensus seems to be that social media is extremely useful for interacting with people and developing brands, but presents more of a challenge when it comes to directly driving transactions (Reuters, March 2012). !

Social Commerce

Nevertheless, companies in the U.S. travel sector are making big bets on social commerce, with airlines currently leading the way in this venture. Social media allows travel marketers to connect directly with customers anytime, anywhere. This is crucial to the time-sensitive travel experience. Having such high levels of ubiquity and immediacy is very beneficial as it offers travel marketers significant opportunities to assess customer sentiment in real-time  (eMarketer 2013). Some innovative travel companies have started to integrate booking channels with their corporate pages. It is now possible to book a room at Omni Hotels or Best Western on Facebook. EasyJet was the first airline to allow passengers to book flights on its page, and popular U.S. carrier Delta has followed suit, offering its customers the ability to buy online and broadcast their bookings on social media. !TripAdvisor recognises the immense power and influence of Facebook, and its Trip Friends feature utilises the network’s social graph to integrate crowd-sourced advice and recommendations with those of a user’s travelling friends and acquaintances. Having advice from friends adds an additional layer of highly personalised, relevant and trusted advice, which will help travellers make better informed decisions during the trip planning phase  (Reuters, March 2012). However, although many travel companies believe that social media is invaluable for tasks such as gathering information, disseminating messages and advising customers, many do not believe social media can be used effectively in actual travel booking. But with the huge influence of social media among the U.S. (and international) travel consumer market, travel marketers have a prime opportunity to be creative and innovative to tap into the power of social media tools for commerce. !

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comScore 2013. U.S. Consumer Online Travel Spending Surpasses $100 Billion for First Time in 2012.See: http://www.comscore.com/Insights/Press_Releases/2013/2/U.S._Consumer_Online_Travel_Spending_Surpasses_100_Billion_for_First_Time_in_2012 !GlobalWebIndex 2013: Online time now exceeds offline media consumption globally. See: http://blog.globalwebindex.net/online-time-now-exceeds-offline-media-consumption-globally/ !eMarketer 2013. Social, Digital Video Drive Further Growth in Time Spent Online. See: http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Social-Digital-Video-Drive-Further-Growth-Time-Spent-Online/1009872#vMROIGZrfxHir7t6.99See: http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Social-Digital-Video-Drive-Further-Growth-Time-Spent-Online/1009872 !Experian 2013. For every hour online Americans spend 16 minutes on social networks. See: http://www.experian.com/blogs/marketing-forward/2013/04/18/for-every-hour-online-americans-spend-16-minutes-on-social-networks/ !Emarketer 2013. How do internet user divvy up their desktop, mobile web time. See: http://www.emarketer.com/Article/How-Do-Internet-Users-Divvy-Up-Their-Desktop-Mobile-Web-Time/1009841 !Emarketer 2013. Digital Set to Surpass TV in Time Spent with US Media. See: http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Digital-Set-Surpass-TV-Time-Spent-with-US-Media/1010096 !InternetWorldStats 2012. Internet usage, Facebook subscribers and population statistics for all the Americas World Region Countries. See: http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats2.htm#americas !Tnooz 2013. How the always connected generation might shake out by 2020 (infographic). See: http://www.tnooz.com/article/how-the-always-connected-generation-might-shake-out-by-2020-infographic/ !EMarketer 2013. The Digital World of Millenials. See:http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Digital-World-of-Millennials/1008382 !HuffingtonPost 2013. 8 Reasons Spanish isn’t a foreign language in the U.S. See:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/12/spanish-foreign-language_n_3430860.html !Nielsen 2012. State of the Hispanic consumer: The Hispanic Market Imperative. See: http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/reports/2012/state-of-the-hispanic-consumer-the-hispanic-market-imperative.html !comScore 2013. U.S. Digital Future in Focus Whitepaper. See for download: http://www.comscore.com/Insights/Presentations_and_Whitepapers/2013/2013_US_Digital_Future_in_Focus !eMarketer 2013. With mature US online population, small gains for email, search usage. See:http://www.emarketer.com/Article/With-Mature-US-Online-Population-Small-Gains-Email-Search-Usage/1009704 !Media Behavior Insights 2013. Internet Use by Platform. See: http://www.mediabehavior.com/insights/internet-use-by-platform/ !

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comScore 2013. 2013 Europe Digital Future in Focus. See:http://www.comscore.com/Insights/Presentations_and_Whitepapers/2013/2013_Europe_Digital_Future_in_Focus !Deloitte 2013. State of the Media Democracy Survey. See: http://www.deloitte.com/view/en_US/us/Industries/media-entertainment/media-democracy-survey/index.htm?id=us_furl_tmt_general_tmttrends_mainushp_031913#&panel1-2 !BGR 2013. iPad, low-cost Android devices to push tablet sales ahead of notebooks this year. See: http://bgr.com/2013/05/28/ipad-android-tablet-shipments-2013/ !Pew Internet Research 2013. Tablet Ownership 2013. See:http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2013/Tablet-Ownership-2013.aspx !comScore 2013. Release of 2013 U.S. Digital Future in Focus Report. See:http://www.comscore.com/Insights/Press_Releases/2013/2/comScore_Releases_the_2013_U.S._Digital_Future_in_Focus_Report !Nielsen 2012. Social Media Report 2012: Social Media comes of age. See: http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/newswire/2012/social-media-report-2012-social-media-comes-of-age.html !Google 2012. Today’s Traveler: Google’s Annual Traveler’s Road to Decision Study. See: http://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/research-studies/the-2012-traveler.html !comScore 2013. U.S. Consumer Online Travel Spending Surpasses $100 Billion for first time in 2012. See:http://www.comscore.com/Insights/Press_Releases/2013/2/U.S._Consumer_Online_Travel_Spending_Surpasses_100_Billion_for_First_Time_in_2012 !eMarketer 2013. Metasearch Growth reflects travellers appetite for information. See: http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Metasearch-Growth-Reflects-Travelers-Appetite-Information/1009853 !Nielsen 2012. Top U.S. online brands and travel websites. See: http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/newswire/2012/april-2012-top-u-s-online-brands-and-travel-websites.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NielsenWire+%28Nielsen+Wire%29 !Skift 2013. U.S. Travel e-commerce spending tops $100 billion, airlines outpace hotels. See: http://skift.com/2013/02/22/u-s-travel-ecommerce-spending-tops-100-billion-airlines-outpace-hotels/ !Reuters 2012. Can the social web get travellers out of their armchairs? See:http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/21/uk-social-web-travel-idUSLNE82K01J20120321 !Pew Internet Research 2013. Demographics of US Internet Users. See: http://www.pewinternet.org/Static-Pages/Trend-Data-(Adults)/Whos-Online.aspx

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!The European Travel Commission (ETC) is the organisation responsible for the promotion of Europe as a tourist destination. It has been operating for more than 60 years. It was established in 1948, and operates as a non profit-making international organisation. ETC undertakes three basic activities: public relations, consumer advertising and trade promotion. Prior market research determines the choice of activities and campaigns in the overseas markets.  !ETC comprises of 33 member countries, namely European Union: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden. Others: Iceland, Monaco, Montenegro, Norway, San Marino, Serbia, Switzerland, Turkey !http://etc-corporate.org !http://etc-digital.org

!The Digital Tourism Think Tank is an international knowledge hub that aims to provide thought leadership to the tourism industry in digital marketing best practice. This project was created by Nick Hall, Managing Director at SE1 Media, who has more than 10 years experience working in digital tourism marketing, both in the marketing sector and in the tourism industry. !Nick is supported by his team at SE1 Media, who have a great experience in the tourism industry as well. In addition, The Digital Tourism Think Tank puts together a team of experts in diverse and varied fields of the tourism industry. !The Digital Tourism Think Tank comprises special features including interviews with industry experts and DMOs, best practice guides and reports, a programme of events and workshops and the Digital Tourism Brand Index !www.thinkdigital.travel !Twitter @think_tourism !facebook.com/DigitalTourismThinkTank