The continued reduction in travel – particularly for business and across borders – will keep digital advertising spending in the United States significantly down
for the next few years.
According
to eMarketer, it will take until 2023 for U.S. digital ad spending in
travel to reach $4.54 billion – putting it close to 2018 levels of $4.8 billion
but still far behind 2019’s spending of more than $6 billion.
In 2020, as the pandemic shut down travel – and focused what
remained of marketing on messages related to hygiene, safety and flexible
policies rather than booking – digital ad spending in the U.S. plummeted to
$2.99 billion, a $3 billion loss compared to 2019.
According to eMarketer, no
other industry declined as fast or spent as little in 2020.
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This year the company estimates the U.S. travel industry
will spend $550 million more than last year, reaching $3.54 billion.
Whereas travel accounted for 4.2% of all U.S. digital ad spending
in 2019, eMarketer estimates travel now accounts for less than 2% of the
industry.
“The U.S. travel industry is not seeing quite the same
bounce back in digital ad spending as other industries have seen in 2021, and a
lot of this is due to stunted business travel and international travel.
Regional airlines, small to medium-sized hotels and independent travel
agencies may have to shutter as their budgets decrease,” eMarketer says.
In 2019, Booking
Holdings and Expedia Group spent $4.97 billion and $6.03, respectively, on
marketing.
Last year, both
companies slashed marketing budgets, with Booking Holdings spending $2.2
billion and Expedia Group spending $2.5 billion.
For the first six months of this year, Booking Holdings has
spent $1.45 billion on marketing and Expedia Group has spent $1.86 billion.
Originally Appeared On: https://www.phocuswire.com/us-travel-digital-ad-spending-remains-pared-down-for-years