A recent study by Expedia Group Advertising reveals that travelers are a uniquely valuable consumer segment, consistently making significant non-travel purchases before, during, and after their trips. This behavior presents a substantial and often overlooked opportunity for brands across diverse sectors—including retail, financial services, and electronics—to engage a receptive, high-intent audience beyond traditional travel-related offerings.
The Traveler as a High-Value Consumer Segment
Travelers systematically integrate non-travel purchases into their trip planning and execution, signaling a significant market opportunity. The Expedia Group Advertising study, based on a survey of 3,500 travel decision-makers across seven global markets conducted by The Harris Poll (February 24-25, 2026), found that the majority of travelers engage in non-travel spending directly tied to their trips.
Globally, 62% of travelers made at least one non-travel purchase for their most recent major leisure trip. This figure rises to 75% among Gen Z and 72% among Millennials, underscoring a generational trend toward comprehensive trip-related spending. On average, travelers spend $500 USD per trip on these non-travel items, representing approximately a quarter of their overall trip expenditure of $2,000 USD. This spend is even higher in markets such as the U.S. ($660 USD), France ($650 USD), and Australia ($610 USD).
Purchasing windows extend across the entire travel cycle:
- Before Departure: Top categories include clothing, shoes, and accessories (70%), beauty and personal care (63%), travel gear and equipment (53%), and electronics and new technology (39%). Gen Z travelers notably over-index in pre-trip purchases of travel gear (60%), electronics (51%), and financial products/services (38%).
- During the Trip: Spending concentrates on local retail shopping (66%) and packaged food and drinks (61%).
- Post-Trip: The purchasing impulse continues, with 72% of travelers making at least one post-trip purchase, surging to 87% for Gen Z. This behavior is often driven by inspiration from their travels, leading to purchases like online foods and drinks discovered abroad (40%), clothing from newly discovered brands (30%), and photo printing or books to document their experiences (27%).
Summary: Travelers exhibit consistent, high-value purchasing behaviors for non-travel items before, during, and after their trips. This spending is driven by trip-related needs, convenience, and inspiration, creating a sustained period of high-intent consumption for a broad range of products and services.
Strategic Engagement: Capturing Mindshare and Wallet Share
The research highlights that travelers are highly receptive to targeted non-travel advertising, making travel planning a potent environment for brand discovery and direct conversion. Jennifer Andre, Vice President of Sales, Expedia Group Advertising, notes, “Travel planning is one of the most powerful consumer intent signals available today.”
- Advertising Receptivity: Most travelers are comfortable with relevant non-travel advertisements on travel platforms. Consumers state these offers provide useful ideas and inspiration (60%), remind them of needed purchases (58%), and help save money (57%). For example, a retail brand specializing in outdoor gear could offer targeted ads to users booking hiking vacations, or a financial services institution could promote travel credit cards to users planning international trips.
- Brand Discovery: Travel fosters significant brand discovery, particularly for luxury and premium brands. Seventy-three percent of travelers report discovering new luxury or premium brands while traveling, with this figure rising to 84% among Gen Z. This creates an opening for high-end retailers or niche B2B SaaS providers (e.g., premium travel tech) to capture the attention of a receptive audience. U.S. travelers are notably more likely to discover brands in destination shops (62%), via social media or influencer content (34%), and at restaurants/bars/clubs (33%).
- Financial Services Opportunities: Trip planning is a pivotal moment for financial decision-making. Travelers fund their trips through various methods, including debit cards (48%), credit cards (41%), loyalty points (19%), and Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) plans (13%, rising to 19% among Gen Z). Crucially, only 17% of BNPL users always stick with the same provider, and 48% are willing to switch based on offers, indicating a strong opportunity for financial institutions to acquire new, high-value customers.
What to do:
- Leverage First-Party Data: Utilize first-party travel intent signals from booking platforms (with explicit consent) to personalize non-travel offers. For example, a telecom provider could promote international roaming plans to users booking flights abroad, or an e-commerce platform could suggest formal wear to users booking cruises.
- Integrate Product Placement: Develop native advertising or curated product placements within travel planning interfaces, such as “Shop for your Trip” sections on booking confirmation pages or in pre-departure emails.
- Develop Co-Marketing Strategies: Form partnerships with travel platforms or specific travel brands to reach relevant customer segments. This could involve joint loyalty programs or integrated promotional campaigns.
- Contextualize Messaging: Tailor ad creatives to specific stages of the travel process (e.g., promoting luggage before booking, local experience discounts during the trip, photo printing services post-trip).
- Offer Flexible Payment Solutions: Financial institutions should provide competitive BNPL options and travel-specific credit card benefits at the point of sale on travel booking platforms, targeting the observed openness to switching providers.
What to avoid:
- Generic Advertising: Do not deploy broad, untargeted campaigns that lack contextual relevance to the traveler’s intent.
- Ignoring Post-Trip Engagement: Overlooking the sustained purchasing and discovery behaviors that occur after a trip, such as inspiration-driven shopping or documentation needs.
- Over-Reliance on Last-Click Attribution: Non-travel purchases initiated by travel intent may have a longer conversion path. Implement multi-touch attribution models to accurately credit earlier touchpoints.
- Neglecting Generational Nuances: Acknowledge and cater to the distinct purchasing habits and discovery channels of Gen Z and Millennials, who show higher engagement in non-travel spending and brand discovery.
Summary: Strategic advertising within the travel ecosystem, paired with flexible payment options, enables brands to capitalize on travelers’ high receptivity, driving both discovery and conversion across a wide range of non-travel categories.
Operationalizing Intent Signals for Measurable Outcomes
To effectively convert traveler intent into measurable business outcomes, enterprises must implement robust data governance, cross-functional collaboration, and a clear measurement framework. The “powerful consumer intent signals” identified by the Expedia Group study require a structured approach to be fully leveraged (Expedia Group Advertising, 2026).
Operating Model and Roles:
- Data Science & Analytics: Responsible for segmenting traveler data, identifying predictive non-travel purchase signals, and building attribution models that transcend last-click. They define the data schema for linking travel and non-travel behaviors.
- Marketing Operations: Manages the execution of targeted campaigns, A/B testing of ad formats and placements, and dynamic audience segmentation within marketing automation platforms (e.g., Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Adobe Experience Platform).
- CX & Product Development: Integrates non-travel product discovery seamlessly into relevant customer touchpoints within existing platforms, ensuring a coherent and value-added experience. This includes designing in-app suggestions, personalized email sequences, and relevant content hubs.
- Partnerships & Business Development: Establishes and manages relationships with travel platforms and non-travel brands for co-marketing, data sharing (with consent), and integrated service offerings.
- Legal & Compliance: Ensures all data utilization adheres to privacy regulations (e.g., GDPR, CCPA) and internal policy, particularly concerning consent management (CMP) for cross-platform data usage.
Governance and Risk Controls:
- Consent Management: Implement robust Consent Management Platforms (CMPs) to ensure explicit user consent for sharing and using travel data for non-travel advertising. Establish clear opt-in/opt-out mechanisms.
- Data Security & Privacy: Enforce strict data security protocols (e.g., encryption, access controls) for all first-party traveler data. Define data retention policies (e.g., 2-year rolling window for active customer data).
- Brand Safety & Relevance: Establish clear guardrails for ad content and placement to maintain brand integrity and ensure relevance. Avoid irrelevant or intrusive advertising that detracts from the user experience (e.g., no gambling ads on family travel planning sites).
- Frequency Capping: Implement thresholds (e.g., maximum 3 non-travel ads per user per session, or 5 per 24 hours) to prevent ad fatigue and ensure a positive customer experience.
- Performance Monitoring: Utilize a RAG (Red/Amber/Green) status system for campaign performance and compliance, with clear escalation paths for underperforming campaigns or privacy breaches.
Measurement and Metrics:
- Non-Travel Conversion Rate: Track the percentage of travelers exposed to non-travel ads who complete a purchase (e.g., 2-5% expected range for targeted campaigns).
- Average Order Value (AOV): Monitor the average spend on non-travel items influenced by travel intent.
- Customer Lifetime Value (CLV): Assess the long-term value increase of customers who engage with non-travel offerings through travel contexts.
- Brand Lift Metrics: Measure changes in brand awareness, consideration, and preference for non-travel brands via surveys or panel studies for users exposed to travel-context ads.
- Attribution Modeling: Employ sophisticated multi-touch attribution models beyond last-click (e.g., time decay, U-shaped) to accurately credit the influence of early travel intent signals.
- Customer Experience Metrics: Monitor Net Promoter Score (NPS >40), Customer Satisfaction (CSAT >85%), and complaint rates (<0.5%) to ensure advertising enhances, rather than detracts from, the overall user experience.
Immediate Priorities (First 90 Days):
- Data Audit: Conduct a comprehensive internal audit of existing first-party travel data and identify potential non-travel intent signals.
- Journey Mapping: Map current customer journeys across both travel and non-travel touchpoints to identify integration opportunities.
- Pilot Program: Launch a controlled pilot advertising campaign for a high-potential non-travel category (e.g., clothing, financial products) targeting a specific traveler segment (e.g., Gen Z leisure travelers) within a defined geography (e.g., U.S.).
- Cross-Functional Working Group: Establish a core team comprising leaders from Marketing, Data, Product, and CX to define strategy, implement governance, and oversee pilot execution.
What ‘Good’ Looks Like: A mature operating model seamlessly integrates privacy-compliant first-party travel intent data to deliver highly relevant, value-added non-travel offers. This enhances the traveler’s experience, drives measurable increases in non-travel revenue and CLV, and strengthens positive customer perception for both travel and non-travel brands.
Summary
The Expedia Group Advertising study provides clear evidence that travelers represent a distinct, high-intent consumer segment with substantial non-travel purchasing behaviors. For senior marketing and CX leaders, this signifies a strategic imperative to move beyond siloed thinking and integrate travel intent signals into broader customer engagement strategies. By adopting a structured approach to data governance, fostering cross-functional collaboration, and implementing precise measurement frameworks, enterprises can unlock significant new revenue streams, enhance brand discovery, and deliver more cohesive customer experiences that extend far “beyond the booking.”
References: Expedia Group Advertising. (2026, April 28). Expedia Group Study Reveals Travelers Are High-Value Consumers, Spending $500+ Per Trip on Non-Travel Purchases. Seattle, WA. The research was conducted by The Harris Poll on behalf of Expedia Group among 3,500 travel decision-makers across seven global markets (United States, United Kingdom, Canada, France, Japan, Mexico, and Australia). The survey was fielded February 24-25, 2026.
