While many travelers book cruise vacations offline, the online experience is in high demand, according to Sojern’s new Cruise Report.
According to the survey of Google search and Sojern travel intent data formed by 350 million unique and anonymized traveler profiles, 48 percent of past cruisers reported booking their last cruise online, with 34 percent booking on the cruise line’s site directly and 14 percent booking on third party sites.
41 percent of past cruises reported booking their last cruise offline, with three in four using a travel agent and one in four calling the cruise line directly.
At the same time, 69 percent would prefer to book their next cruise online, while 42 percent prefer to book directly on a cruise line’s site and 27 percent on third party sites.
Mobile remains increasingly on the rise in cruise planning, with 29 percent of cruise searches made on-site in 2017 conducted on mobile, up 33 percent year over year. Cruise searches peak on Monday and Tuesday, with the majority of searches still occurring on desktop. While overall search intent drops towards weekends, the share of mobile usage increases from a quarter of all searches during weekdays to a third of all search on weekends.
Online bookings are still largely dominated by desktop, with only 10 percent of online cruise bookings made on mobile devices.
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