Research by Adventure Travel Trade Association (ATTA) was highlighted in a November 2nd Tnooz article by writer Alex Bainbridge. The article, "Jury still out - how important is Facebook for travel companies in 2010?", collates interesting and relevant data from several industry studies, including the recently released “Social Media Study: Travel, Tweets & Trends.” A joint study by Adventure Travel Trade Association, Resmark Systems, Convince & Convert, the report is available at $50.
As reports go, if you are a tour operator (regardless of whether you are adventure travel or not) this is pretty much a must buy. ~ Alex Bainbridge
In his article, Mr. Bainbridge points to the following key stats he felt were important from the Social Media Study: Travel, Tweets & Trends.
Aimed at tour operators, interesting stats include:
- 43% of companies say social media is quite or extremely important to their business success
- Facebook is the dominant social media tactic, with more companies now using Facebook than email newsletters
- 69% of companies are spending 10 hours per week or less on their social media programs
- Budgets for social media are very small. 67% of companies are spending less than 5000 USD per year, including labour.
- Facebook is used at least weekly by 67% of the companies responding to their survey. Twitter follows with 47% weekly usage.
- 54% rated email newsletters effective or very effective
- 38% rated Facebook
- 28% rated Youtube
- 17% rated Twitter
Mr. Bainbridge also sites additional industry stats including the following from the Experian Hitwise report called Getting to grips with Social Media.
- The most popular reason for people to follow brands on social networks is to find out about promotional offers and sales.
- Second most popular reason is to hear other users experience/reviews.
- Social media accounts for 11.5% of all UK Internet visits.
- 13.25% of all downstream traffic from social networks in September 2010 went to other social networks.