Originally published: News Corp Australia, 9 September 2025
The Growth Distillery, in collaboration with Pureprofile, today launched Signals of Intent: Travel, revealing five key sets of behaviours that predict when consumers are likely to make a travel purchase.
The landmark study analysed 500,000 real-world travel transactions and included surveys with 3,000 travellers to determine exactly how and when consumers are ready to book. The research found confident travellers deliver 40% greater spend, convert 25% faster, and generate higher ROI for marketers.
The five types of behaviours that predict travel readiness include:
- Content Consumption: confident travellers who read travel content, consume 60% more content from trusted travel websites.
- Social Media: excessive social media engagement often indicates uncertainty when it comes to planning the next trip.
- Journey Decisiveness: confident consumers visit fewer sources and make travel decisions with greater focus and speed.
- Risk and Safety Concerns: frequent visits to government safety websites signal weak booking confidence.
- Life Stability: major life changes such as a new job, relationship or moving house significantly reduces travel confidence.
The research uncovered four critical actions for travel marketers:
- Reduce Decision Paralysis: limit options to 3-5 to prevent choice overload
- Optimise for Speed: streamline booking flows with express purchase options
- Target Upselling Strategically: embed additional options within simple purchase paths
- Consolidate Platform Experience: provide inspiration, reassurance, and booking tools in one place
The Growth Distillery Senior Manager Audience Intelligence Jessica Folkard said: “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 Growth Distillery is an independent research think-tank, powered by News Corp Australia. To download Signals of Intent: Travel click here.
