Sporting events can inspire travel bookings, finds lastminute.com

Summer presents ‘huge opportunity’ for brands to engage with travellers Continue reading →

Analysis of travel searches by lastminute.com suggests sporting events can play a major role in inspiring customers to choose their holiday destination.

Searches for travel deals to London on lastminute.com rose by a fifth on the first day of Wimbledon in 2017 and interest in travelling to Nice, France, rose by 112% on the day of the Monaco Grand Prix.

Searches for South Korea rose 116% three days before this year’s Winter Olympics compared to a week before the event.

With the World Cup taking place in Russia this summer, Lastminute.com’s media unit Travel People decided to look into the effect previous events have had on travel inspiration.

Alessandra Di Lorenzo, chief commercial officer – media and partnerships at lastminute.com group, said: “From the Tour de France to Wimbledon and the World Cup, this summer presents a huge opportunity for brands to engage with sports-inspired travellers – whether they’re taking part, spectating or simply checking out the latest location seen on their TV.

“And the opportunity goes beyond travel itself; when people make travel bookings, it has a knock-on effect on purchases in other categories too – for everything from sports insurance through to equipment and accessories for their trip. By effectively layering data and targeting by passion as well as demographics, brands can tap into the many other purchase points before, during and after travel.”

Travel People, which has published a white paper on the research, offers sports targeting tools to travel sellers, which allow brands to target and engage its nearly 13 million users with a love of sport and travel.