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Scandinavians slow in adopting social media for travel
Scandinavians are slowly embracing social media for travel purposes, a recent study by Amadeus reveals. This very interesting report focuses on how the adoption of mobile communictaion will transform the travel industry, and is worth a read.
Asia, UK and Latin-America in front
On a Nordic note, however, I was surprised to learn that we Scandinavians have fallen behind our fellow travellers when it comes to using social media for travel related purposes.
Social media travel statistics. Screen shot from the report "The Always Connected Traveller" by Amadeus 2011.
Sweden and Denmark are two of the countries featured in the whitepaper. Just over half of Swedish and Danish travellers, 53 percent, report using social media for travel. This figure is far behind our British (77%) or Spanish (71%) counterparts. And it hardly even registers compared to the eagerness Chinese, Hong Kong-based or Singaporean travellers demonstrate in their use of social media services for travel (92%, 85% and 81% respectively).
Hints of possibilities to come
In many respects, it’s impressive that more than half of the surveyed Scandinavians use social media for travel. In the egalitarian and affluent North, most of the population travels frequently, be it for work or leisure. It is probable that a greater specter of the population could be counted as seasoned travellers in Scandinavia than in most other parts of the world. Still, there is a long ways to go!
With smartphone adoption on the increase here in Northern Europe, and the Scandinavian travel marked being one of the most online-oriented in Europe, marketers should expect more social media interactions from travellers in the years to come. The Asian numbers only hint at the possibilities in social media marketing for travel.
A hat tip to my Swedish fellow social media enthusiast Hans Kullin who blogged about the Amadeus report first and brought it to my attention. Thanks! (I do promise to not go quoting your blog posts all the time; you just do a splendid job of being interesting!)
