UK Online Travel Site Increasing In Popularity
Over half of online Briton’s visit a travel site every month, a growth of 20% in the last year, according to new figures from Nielsen//NetRatings, with the over 50s being particularly active in the area.
Nielsen//NetRatings claim that 86% of all British internet users aged over 50 have visited a travel site in the last year, with surfers spending on average 40 minutes a month viewing more than 70 pages of content on a variety of travel sites, from airlines to cruise lines, hotels to travel agents.
Commenting on the results, Alex Burmaster, European internet analyst at Nielsen//NetRatings said: “The figures for the online travel sector continue to impress but what screams out is the staggering percentage of over 50’s who go online for travel. This not only has far-reaching implications for the Internet as a whole but confirms beyond doubt that the web is not just a young person’s tool.”
The lucrative over 50’s age group is a wide and varied audience hungry for travel experiences and adept at using the Internet, with the most popular travel site with the over 50’s found to be Expedia, ahead of Lastminute.com by almost 900,000 visitors during summer 2005.
Overall, pure online travel sites were found to be more popular with the over 50’s than the traditional high street brands, with the over 50’s are “looking and booking” online more than their younger counterparts.
Burmaster added: “The way that the 50+ age group has embraced the online travel sector contains valuable lessons for all sectors looking to increase their online customers. The behaviour of this age group is an extremely vibrant example of how the Internet can be used to improve people’s lives and experiences.”
In the US, online travel revenues are forecast to rise by nearly 20% this year, with new estimates from Jupiter Research predicting spend in the US to rise to $104 billion by 2010, representing 34% of all travel expenditure.
Travel research firm, PhoCusWright expects growth in the region to be even faster, forecasting the US online leisure/unmanaged business travel sales arena to reach $93.6 million by 2007.
The shift to online travel booking is being driven in part by supplier companies in the hotel, airline and car rental industries. By using online pricing and packaging incentives, they hope to garner a greater share of the business.
The strong performance in the online travel division is echoed in predictions from Merrill Lynch, with the analyst slightly less optimistic that Jupiter, forecasting online travel agency revenues to rise by 19% in 2005, reaching $27.7 billion.
Merrill claims that online travel sales are winning a larger share of the overall travel market, accounting for nearly 30% of the total this year, up from 25% in 2004 and 21% in 2003.
Nielsen//NetRatings www.nielsen-netratings.com