The Social Media Habits of Luxury Travelers in the Americas and Beyond

Luxury travelers are looking for “Instagram-able” moments when choosing destinations, hotels, and trip experiences. And travel providers’ ability to promote those photo-worthy moments is becoming more important than ever.

A new report, The Luxury Traveller & Social Media 2013: The Americas, released this week by reputation manager Brand Karma and International Luxury Travel Market analyzes more than 500,000 reviews written for 2,000 luxury hotels between January 2010 and June 2013.

It found travelers from different markets use different platforms to write reviews and prioritize different aspects of a hotel stay.

A few takeaways from the report are as follows:

• North Americans and Europeans are most likely to post hotel reviews on reviews sites like TripAdvisor. Travelers from emerging economies rely more on social networks like Facebook and Instagram.
• Travelers from North America prioritize experiences, aesthetics, cleanliness, and helpfulness. Travelers from Latin America prioritize the quality of bedrooms, bathrooms, and restaurants.
• The average hotel review from a North American traveler is 116 words. The average review from a Latin American travelers is 58 words.

Big Opportunities Still Exist on Social

Consumers from Argentina, Chile, Peru, Colombia, and Mexico are among the most engaged social networking users in the world. They spend 7 to 10 hours a month on social networking websites.

This represents a huge opportunity for global travel brands, especially Latin American hotels that currently have little or no managed presence on major photo and video channels. Nine out of 10 North American hotels are present on Pinterest and YouTube.

Despite travelers’ preferences for experiences or amenities, every luxury hotel needs to have a strong social media presence.

The report found that top-ranking luxury hotels have at least 5,000 Facebook Likes, an average TripAdvisor rating of at least 4.5, and a strong presence on at least one photo of video platform including Instagram, YouTube, and Pinterest.

The complete report from Brand Karma and the International Luxury Travel Market is embedded below: