Transit, Travel, & Tourism

Members of our consulting team are experienced researchers in transit, travel, and tourism, and we have assisted clients by studying their customers and prospects to better understand the key motivators and deterrents to purchasing decisions in these business and leisure segments.

Over the past several years, competition for travelers has fueled price wars and innovative partnerships to provide travel incentives. We have worked with a variety of clients to help them differentiate themselves, build brand loyalty, maximize occupancy as well as load so they make informed business decisions that increase revenue and customer satisfaction.

Limelight Insights has extensive experience conducting market research for virtually every sector in the transit, travel, and tourism industries including:

  • Public Transportation
  • Cities, Counties, and Districts
  • Tourist Attractions
  • Amusement Parks
  • Hotels & Resorts
  • Travel Agencies

Limelight Insights is a leader in conducting image, awareness, and positioning research for clients in the transit, travel, and tourism industries such as:

  • Brand Positioning
  • Competitive Analysis
  • Strategy/Message Testing
  • Communication Effectiveness
  • Brand Awareness and Impact Tracking
  • Loyalty Program/Purchase Incentive Program Assessment

Limelight Insights Knows
Transit, Travel, & Tourism Market Research

We offer full service design, analysis and consulting for qualitative and quantitative market research studies. Our market research services have provided invaluable insights for transit, travel, and tourism industries, including reasons for interest in or deterrents to visiting a destination, and awareness and perceptions of offerings in an area.

Case Study: Railway Website Usability

A European railway was in the process of refreshing its website and simplifying its online booking engine by narrowing down consumer choices to four broad categories with easier to use product descriptions. The client contracted with Limelight Insights by Shugoll to conduct website usability testing among prospective website users to ensure the proposed changes would enhance the site and make it more user-friendly.

A series of in-depth interviews were conducted with individuals who had traveled to Europe in the past year or who planned to travel in the next year. Further, individuals were carefully screened and recruited to meet a range of demographic profiles including:

  • DINKS (Dual income no kids)
  • Baby Boomers
  • College Students 
  • Young Adults

Each interview participant viewed three proposed screen redesigns. The research results were used by the client to enhance the proposed website pages to ensure maximum ease-of-use.

A large part of our business is answering critical questions
and providing actionable insights that can inform a business’ or organization’s direction.

Here are some of the questions Limelight Insights has helped travel and tourism clients answer:

How can our transit system recover ridership in a post-COVID world?

If you work in transit, it’s likely that you’ve noticed a decline in ridership post-COVID. With changing commutes and work schedules, changing leisure patterns, and just general post-COVID inertia, people aren’t getting back out there as much as you might like. Many transit companies want to explore if COVID is the main driver or if something else entirely is driving these transportation changes. We’ve helped major transportation clients engage in ridership recovery research in our post-COVID world to determine reasons for decreased ridership, barriers and drivers for riding transit, the appropriateness of fare prices, and much more.

Can our riders navigate our transit system easily? Is our signage easy to understand?

Is your transit system developing new routes or new signage that you’re concerned riders may be confused by? The Limelight Insights team can coordinate ride alongs to see exactly how riders navigate a new route. They can show moderators their navigation path, talk them through their travel decision-making process, or can engage in message testing of new signage to ensure that new signage is clearly understood and readable.

How can we evaluate and compare how our customers perceive the quality of our services with those offered by our competitors?

Our team recommends and has had reliable results using a systematic feedback program that invites customers who have recently used your services to rate and comment on their travel experience. We design custom evaluation forms using qualitative input to ensure coverage of all the key issues. The evaluations can be distributed right after traveling and are easy to complete ensuring accurate recall and high participation levels.

Over time, the data will provide a picture of overall satisfaction, including which elements — service, quality, convenience, and price — are most important when selecting a travel path/service. The research also calculates how your service compares with others competing for the same customers. Evaluations can delineate variations in satisfaction from a national level down to a specific market or location.

What truly builds brand loyalty among frequent business travelers and other high-revenue segments?

Using conjoint analysis, our consulting team has designed high-impact frequent traveler programs that result not only in highly satisfied members, but members who are motivated to return to the sponsoring company. Among the components tested are various recognition options, different reward structures and awards, different levels of partnering agreements, and different point accrual systems.

After identifying optimal program features through surveys with frequent business travelers, the program is then test marketed or rolled out. In either case, we provide research to evaluate the program’s effectiveness and profitability making recommendations on how to fine tune for an even higher ROI.

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