Photo: Handsome man with dreadlocks taking a photograph of sunset from a sand dune by Andrea Obzerova

The travel industry knows visuals matter. But a pretty image is about as far as most companies go when considering how images impact conversion.

If we use interplanetary space travel as an analogy for how e-commerce sites use imagery, a lot of people are still wearing homemade wings with chicken feathers and hoping to fly.

At 500px, we’ve collected billions of data points on how different people react to different types of imagery, which we share with brands to help them choose images that will lift. We recently created an online travel agency to test how images impact conversion in the travel industry.

We’re sharing our findings with our colleagues at Skift. Head over to their blog to check out the surprising results.

Handsome man with dreadlocks taking a photograph of sunset from a sand dune by Andrea Obzerova on 500px.com