December 5th, 2022, Janice Fernandes
With so much of consumers’ lives now conducted digitally, checking online reviews before a purchase has perhaps become second nature for many. With only around 14% of global consumers now booking travel services in person, how likely are global consumers to check online reviews and ratings before booking a room or flight ticket?
In a recent YouGov survey across 17 markets we asked consumers for which products and services would they check online reviews. Of all the categories given, global respondents are most likely to check for reviews on consumers electronics (43%), hotels (42%) and restaurants and bars (42%). Among the least likely categories are video streaming services (15%), airlines (18%) and financial and investment products (18%).
Consumers in individual markets behave on similar lines as global respondents. They are more likely to check for hotel reviews than airline reviews before booking. Spain (57%) and Britain (51%) lead the markets studied in this survey where more than half say they book a hotel based on other customers’ recommendation through reviews and ratings.
Singapore is the only country from the APAC region to outpace the global audience (46%) in checking hotel reviews. While consumers in India (40%), Hong Kong (39%) and Australia (39%) are not far behind in relying on online reviews, just about a third of consumers in China and Indonesia say the same (29% each), the lowest of all 17 markets.
While data indicates that consumers are extremely interested in staying in hotels with high customer satisfaction, the decision when choosing which airline to travel by doesn’t necessarily involve as much research.
Consumers in UAE (35%) are nearly twice as likely as global respondents (18%) – and the highest of all markets – to say they actively check airline reviews before picking one.
Fewer than two in ten consumers in the European markets check online reviews of airlines before booking. Germany registers the lowest figure of all markets (10%), followed by Poland (12%) and Great Britain (13%).
Canadians are more likely than Americans to rely on online reviews be it for hotels (43% vs. 38%) or airlines (18% vs. 12%).
This data could suggest that customer satisfaction is trumped by factors like price or time of flight when picking an airline.
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Methodology: YouGov RealTime Omnibus provides quick survey results from nationally representative or targeted audiences in multiple markets. The data is based on surveys of adults aged 18 and over in 18 markets with sample sizes varying between 514 and 2023 for each market. All surveys were conducted online in October 2022. Data from each market uses a nationally representative sample apart from Mexico and India, which use urban representative samples, and Indonesia and Hong Kong, which use online representative samples. Learn more about YouGov RealTime Omnibus.