Travel report published today that after the great rupture of 2020, brands are resetting their relationships with customers, and travel advertising is all set for rapid growth according to Zenith’s Business Intelligence.
The forecast is that travel advertising in 13 key markets — USA, UK, Switzerland, Spain, Russia, Poland, Italy, India, Germany, France, China, Canada, Australia, all of which account for 74% of the total global adspend — will see a 24% growth in 2021, two times as fast as the whole of the advertising market, before a 36% growth in 2022 and a 19% growth in 2023.
Travel brands have to rebuild their relationship with their customers as they adjust to the realities of post-COVID travel. Companies will have to address consumer concerns about the sustainability of travel and adapt to the increasing demand for low-carbon travel.
One of the categories hardest hit by COVID-19 was travel advertising. The travel ad market lost 46% of its value in 2020. And the ad market as a whole contracted by only 4%.
Travel adspend fell from US$18.0 billion in 2019 to US$9.7 billion in 2020 according to an estimate by Zenith. Over the next few years, the pent-up demand for travel will drive fast growth in travel adspend, but it will take a long while to go back to the pre-pandemic spending.
The ad market as a whole will be 7% ahead of its 2019 level this year, while the travel adspend will be 33% behind. For travel to surpass the 2019 levels of spending, it will take until 2023, when it is expected to reach US$19.6 billion.
Travel advertising is a category that’s been ahead of the others in digital marketing. They spend more on digital advertising than an average brand — 63% in 2020, compared to an average of 58%. In 2021, they’ve conducted 32% of sales by e-commerce when compared to 20% of retail as a whole.
According to a forecast by Zenith, digital adspend by travel brands will grow by 6% per year between 2019 and 2023. Travel brands will be spending 70% of their budgets on digital advertising, which is an increase from 63% in 2020.
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