The Growth Distillery, in partnership with Pureprofile, has released a study titled 'Signals of Intent: Travel'. The research analysed 500,000 real-world travel transactions and surveyed 3,000 travellers to identify patterns in travel purchase behaviour.

The study highlights five key behaviours that predict travel purchase intent: content consumption, social media engagement, journey decisiveness, risk and safety concerns, and life stability. According to the findings, confident travellers consume 60% more content from trusted travel websites compared to their less confident counterparts. It suggests that greater frequency of content consumption from reliable sources is indicative of purchase intent.

The Growth Distillery Senior Manager Audience Intelligence Jessica Folkard stated, "Greater frequency of content consumption from trusted publishers is a clear signal of purchase intent. Confident travellers actively seek quality information before booking, whilst uncertain consumers get lost in endless social media scrolling. Instead of chasing every signal, marketers should focus on identifying and targeting confident consumers who move decisively through the purchase journey."

The study also found that excessive engagement with social media platforms indicates uncertainty in travel planning. Confident consumers, on the other hand, tend to visit fewer sources and make travel decisions more swiftly. Frequent visits to government safety websites were identified as a signal of weak booking confidence, suggesting that concerns over risk and safety can impact travel decisions.

Additionally, major life changes such as starting a new job, entering a new relationship, or moving house were found to reduce travel confidence. These life events appear to influence an individual's readiness to commit to travel plans.

The research suggests four actions for travel marketers to consider: reducing decision paralysis, optimising for speed, targeting upselling strategically, and consolidating platform experience. These actions are aimed at enhancing the consumer journey and improving conversion rates.

The Growth Distillery, an independent research think-tank powered by News Corp Australia, aims to provide insights that help marketers better understand consumer behaviour. The collaboration with Pureprofile in this study seeks to offer actionable intelligence for the travel industry.