Only 53 percent of time spent accessing travel content from mobile devices is spent using apps, compared with 47 percent using the browser, according to a survey of US users by comScore. This contrasts with 82.8 percent share of minutes for apps and 17.2 percent for the mobile web overall.

According to the survey, nearly 40 million US consumers accessed travel content from their devices during July 2012, giving a reach of 37 percent of the smartphone population.

The research found some marked differences between the performance of specific travel providers. For the top placed site, TripAdvisor, 76.5 percent of use was from its app, while for number-two placed Expedia, app use made up less than half (49.1 percent) of the total.