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Case Study

Leading travel app reaches ‘Summer Travelers’ with precision 

Challenge

Polarsteps set out to establish itself as a global thought leader in travel, giving journalists in its key markets an ongoing, reliable source of data for stories about how people travel. Its first “Year in Travel” report, published at the end of 2025, relied on an internal survey. To add credibility to its findings, Polarsteps wanted to partner with an external research provider that could complement its own data with independent, quantitative consumer research. 

Solution

Dynata designed and delivered a fully managed, multi-market quant survey to complement Polarsteps’ own app data: 

  • 2,400 respondents surveyed across four key markets: the US, UK, Germany, and France 
  • A pre-profiled “Summer Traveler” audience of consumers actively planning to travel within the next three months 
  • End-to-end delivery, including scripting, link testing, soft launch QA, fieldwork management, translations, and final data cleaning, so Polarsteps could focus on the story, not the process A fast, predictable timeline: 7 days in field, 2 weeks from kickoff to final data, and 4 weeks total from initial brief 

Polarsteps combined the survey findings with anonymized data from 75,000 planned trips in its own app to produce its Summer Travel Trends report, giving journalists exclusive, credible statistics on how people are planning, and being influenced by AI and world events, this travel season. 

Impact

With Dynata’s data behind it, Polarsteps’ Summer Travel Trends report has already generated: 

  • 100+ pieces of media coverage to date, including major outlets like Yahoo, Conde Nast, and Euronews, with more expected as the report continues to roll out across markets 
  • A viral follow-up moment: Polarsteps’ PR team built a Summer Heat Escape Index from one of the survey’s questions on ‘coolcations,’ combining the survey data with external sources to rank the best spots to escape the summer heat, and it took off across global media 
  • A credible, third-party data layer that strengthens Polarsteps’ positioning as a trusted voice on global travel trends 
  • A repeatable model for future reports, with Polarsteps planning to run the research again next year and potentially expand into new seasons 

“Dynata helped us get a survey into market quickly and professionally, giving us a fast read on the trends shaping summer travel — how people are using AI to plan, how geopolitical conflict is reshaping their plans, and where they’re finding inspiration this year. It was a great collaboration, and we look forward to continued surveys as we keep telling the story of how the world travels.” 

Toby Fisher
Marketing Lead

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