New Report Helps Travelers Make Informed Choices
ARLINGTON, Va. – Dec. 12, 2017 – Airlines Reporting Corporation (ARC), in collaboration with Expedia, Inc., today released its fourth annual comprehensive study of worldwide air travel trends: The 2018 Air Travel Outlook Report. ARC and Expedia together conducted an original analysis of over one billion flights to spot trends that can help leisure and business flyers determine the best personal choices between the myriad of available air travel options. Egencia, the business travel company of Expedia, also provided analysis and commentary on corporate travel for this report.
ARC contributed detailed insights into changing travel patterns—such as the shift to longer advance purchases—and the resulting benefits to travelers. Some of the key findings from this study include:
- The advance purchase window for cost-effective ticket purchases continues to gradually increase as a result of strong demand. Business travelers are also beginning to understand this shifting dynamic, resulting in long-haul, premium flights being booked further in advance.
- For most economy or premium air travel, booking more than 30 days ahead is a good strategy for purchasing lower priced tickets.
- With few exceptions around the world, lower airfares for international and U.S. domestic economy seats were booked on a Sunday.
- The busiest gateways into the U.S. are New York, Los Angeles and Miami, while other gateway cities continue to see strong traffic, signaling continuing demand for international travel into the U.S.
The complete study is available free online here.
Chuck Thackston, ARC’s managing director of data science and research, stated: “It’s well understood that consumers who possess relevant information in tune with their personal preferences before they shop, will be more confident and likely to make a final purchase. With our continued strong relationship with Expedia, including Egencia, ARC is able to provide these broad-based insights on travel around the world – both leisure and corporate – that supports the continued growth of air travel and the travel industry as a whole. The ability to see what is changing and provide actionable data and insights to ARC’s customers and travelers worldwide is core to ARC’s analytical capabilities.”
Greg Schulze, senior vice president, Expedia commented, “Expedia is constantly looking for ways to improve the experience of booking travel. Finding patterns in data is at the core of what we do. Our algorithms use data science to analyze approximately 19 quadrillion potential flight itineraries and filter them to display the most relevant options for each journey. When it comes to saving on flights, booking early, and taking advantage of the other unique ways to save on Expedia will help people go places for less.”
“Egencia is delighted to contribute to the ARC and Expedia annual report this year. Using ARC’s data on premium travel demand, we leveraged our unique end-to-end single global platform that covers both travel booking and policy to include insights based on Egencia’s corporate client travel behaviour. This report provides several useful benchmarks to help our global corporate clients of all sizes better manage their travel budgets,” said Tristan Smith, vice president of global transportation supply at Egencia.
About ARC:
The Airlines Reporting Corporation (ARC) is the premier driver of air travel intelligence and commerce in the travel industry with leading business solutions, travel agency accreditation services, process and financial management tools and high-quality data. In 2016, ARC settled $86 billion worth of carrier ticket transactions for nearly 7,000 travel agencies with more than 12,000 points of sale. Established in 1984, ARC is an ISO 27001 certified company headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, with offices in Louisville, Kentucky, Tampa, Florida and San Juan, Puerto Rico. For more information, please visit https://www2.arccorp.com/ and www.twitter.com/arctalk.
About Expedia, Inc.
Expedia, Inc. is the world’s largest online travel company, with an extensive brand portfolio that includes leading online travel brands, such as:
- Expedia.com®, a leading full-service online travel brand with localized sites in 33 countries
- Hotels.com®, a leading global lodging expert operating 90 localized websites in 41 languages with its award winning Hotels.com® Rewards loyalty program
- Expedia® Affiliate Network (EAN), a global B2B brand that powers the hotel business of hundreds of leading airlines, travel agencies, loyalty and corporate travel companies plus several top consumer brands through its API and template solutions
- trivago®, a leading online hotel search platform with sites in 55 countries worldwide
- HomeAway®, a global online marketplace for the vacation rental industry, which also includes the VRBO®, VacationRentals.com® and BedandBreakfast.com® brands, among others
- Egencia®, a leading corporate travel management company
- Orbitz® and CheapTickets®, leading U.S. travel websites, as well as ebookers®, a full-service travel brand with websites in seven European countries
- Travelocity®, a leading online travel brand in the U.S. and Canada delivering customer service when and where our customers need it with the Customer First Guarantee
- Hotwire®, inspiring spontaneous travel through Hot Rate® deals
- Wotif Group, a leading portfolio of travel brands including Wotif.com®, Wotif.co.nz, lastminute.com.au®, lastminute.co.nz and travel.com.au®
- Expedia® Media Solutions, the advertising sales division of Expedia, Inc. that builds creative media partnerships and enables brand advertisers to target a highly-qualified audience of travel consumers
- CarRentals.com™, a premier online car rental booking company with localized sites in 13 countries
- Classic Vacations®, a top luxury travel specialist
- Expedia Local Expert®, a provider of online and in-market concierge services, activities, experiences and ground transportation in over a thousand destinations worldwide
- Expedia® CruiseShipCenters®, a provider of exceptional value and expert advice for travelers booking cruises and vacations through its network of over 240 retail travel agency franchises across North America
- SilverRail Technologies, Inc., provider of a global rail retail and distribution platform connecting rail carriers and suppliers to both online and offline travel distributors
For corporate and industry news and views, visit us at www.expediainc.com or follow us on Twitter @expediainc.
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About Egencia
Egencia makes business travel better by making it more connected and complete. Egencia puts travelers at the heart of business travel, continuously supporting them with solutions that are more engaging and effective. Driven by consumer insights and technology investments from parent company, the Expedia, group, Egencia connects everything travelers need – content, technology, service and reporting – in one place. Egencia provides services in more than 65 countries. To connect with Egencia, visit egencia.com or @Egencia. Follow along on our blog.