Mobile travel bookings in Saudi Arabia soared by 116% in 2017, according to data in the Cleartrip 2017 Travel Insights report.
31% of bookings in 2017 represented purchases made on mobile as compared to 69% desktop-based purchases, whereas in the UAE, which according to the report, witnessed a 60.65% rise in mobile transactions last year, 25% of total bookings took place on mobile devices as opposed to 75% on desktop, the report said.
For the report, a number of top cities in the kingdom were assessed but Riyadh came out on top for the highest rate of mobile booking penetration (MBP) with 32% booking made on a mobile platform followed by Jeddah at 31%.
The report also found a correlation on the number of tickets booked and the platform used. For bookings with multiple travellers, in this case, reservations for group of 10, 83% chose desktops as their booking platform while 27% of the solo travellers chose to make their travel plans on cell phones.
Another interesting find is that more than 57% of travel bookings via mobile devices in the Kingdom took place within seven days before departure – which is two in five customers. And the average fare per booking stood at AED 1,322 (US $360) in Saudi Arabia which came right behind Kuwait at AED 1,543 ($420). Oman came out lowest for fare per mobile booking among the GCC countries at AED 944 ($257).
In terms of the economics of the country, the report added that signs are showing that Saudi Arabia will continue to see very strong growth for airlines in the next five years with solid capacity growth facilitated by local airlines and new entrants in the market.
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