Dive Brief:

• Travelers are most likely to use an online travel agency for trip planning, according to Expedia Group’s 2023 Path to Purchase study. Other resources travelers frequently use to research, plan and book trips include metasearch travel websites and hotel websites. 
• When it comes to booking hotels and other accommodations, OTAs are again the top choice by travelers, the Expedia study found. When asked about their most recent trip, 51% of respondents said they booked travel on an OTA, while 23% booked directly through a hotel's website. 
• Travelers' preference for OTAs comes as the technology gap between the online travel providers and hotels continues to widen, with companies like Expedia, Priceline and Kayak all integrating generative AI features to simplify the planning and booking process.

Dive Insight:

Leading up to booking, OTAs were the most-used online resource by travelers, the Expedia study found. In the 45 days before their purchase, 80% of travelers used an OTA as a planning resource, while 61% used a search engine, 58% used social media and 36% used a hotel website. 

The study — conducted between March 24 and April 19 of this year among 5,713 global participants who booked online travel within the last six months — also found travelers spent more time on OTA sites than any other resource. Travelers spent an average of 160 minutes on OTAs compared to 95 minutes on hotel sites. 

Ease of use was a top factor travelers considered when determining what online travel resource to plan with, second to best prices available, according to the study. 

Companies like Expedia and Kayak are hoping to make trip planning through OTAs easier with AI. Earlier this year, the companies were the first major travel players to partner with OpenAI’s AI-powered ChatGPT chatbot, providing users with a “virtual travel assistant” to make trip planning more personal and easy.

Rathi Murthy, chief technology officer at Expedia Group, previously told Hotel Dive that a large language model like ChatGPT not only provides a “seamless” experience for users, but it gives them access to the most up-to-date information on the price of a hotel. 

Generative AI is also making booking through OTAs easier for travelers. Priceline’s AI-powered chatbot, developed by Google Cloud, allows users to book hotels directly within the chat. 

More than half of Expedia study respondents used an OTA to book some portion of their most recent trip, and 76% of those travelers had previously booked travel through an OTA.