US online travel market up to 40m

Monday, 10 Jun, 2005 0

The number of Americans buying travel online rose by 14% last year to 40 million.

Among the 59 million who said they had been online in the past month and had flown in the past year, 88% shop for travel online and 63% usually purchase travel via the internet, according to PhoCusWright.

Price is no longer the determining factor influencing online holiday buyers. Convenience is starting to edge out price as the most effective decision driver.

The PhoCusWright survey in the US showed that 28% of those shoppers buying a combination of airline tickets and hotel accommodation from the same website did so to save time, compared to 27% to cited price discounts as thier incentive.

The research firm’s seventh consumer travel trends survey found that of those who used just one website to buy travel, 37% cited convenience against 25% who looked for discounts.

Twenty one per cent purchasing on multiple sites aimed to save time but 28% were looking for better pricing.

Other findings showed that buisness travel rebounded with 44% saying they had taken a flight on business, up from 33% in 2003.

There was a higher incidence of online hotel purchasing last year over 2003 (71% verses 60%), approaching that of air purchases (92% in both years).

Half of all online combination purchases consist of air and hotel, 24% air, hotel and car and just 4% hotel and car.

More hotel chains are pushing their way onto the list of the top three web sites used for hotel bookings as Hilton and Marriots outpaced Hotels.com and Priceline and contributed to declines for Expedia and Travelocity, the report shows.

Analyst and report author Susna Steinbrink said: “Those subsegments of online travellers that have a significantly higher incidence of online travel shopping and purchasing tend to be the more seasoned travellers and savvy internet veterans.”

Report by Phil Davies

Phil Davies

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