Taking a Trip to the Web; Consumers Using the Internet for Travel

59% Have Recently Purchased Travel Online; 82% Prefer to Make Travel Arrangements Online

REDWOOD CITY, Calif., Aug 17, 2004 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Online activity around the travel category is sky-high, according to independent research conducted by Feedback Research, a division of the Claria Corporation (www.claria.com), a leader in online behavioral marketing.
Feedback Research analyzed the actual online traffic of Claria's more than 43 million users and surveyed a random sample of users who viewed major travel sites to gain insight into their online travel purchasing and research habits. Results indicated that consumers are searching online for their hotel, airline and car rental needs with 82% preferring to make travel arrangements online and 59% of total survey respondents citing they had purchased travel online in the past 90 days. Of those respondents, 67% made their purchases at either a travel aggregator site such as Expedia, Orbitz or Travelocity or a specific airline site.

Airline Sites and Travel Aggregators Battle for the Skies
-- 78% of survey respondents who purchased from a travel aggregator site typically preferred to go there first when they begin researching travel arrangements.
-- 50% of survey respondents who ultimately purchased from an airline site typically preferred to go to an airline site first when they begin researching travel arrangements while 41% preferred to go to a travel aggregator site first.
-- Airline tickets were the most popular online travel purchase with 87% of survey respondents who purchased from a travel aggregator site in the past 90 days saying that they purchase airline tickets; followed by hotels with 54% and car rentals with 42%.

Driving Loyalty
-- Of those loyal respondents who repeatedly purchase from 1 or 2 favorite travel aggregator sites, 82% reported doing so because of "good price";30% because of "good packages."

* Online analysis of those respondents who answered "good price,"indicates that they actually came back to the category more often (8.4% more) and viewed 5% more sites than the average consumer.
* Online analysis of those respondents who answered "good packages," indicates that they Actually came back to the category 16% more and viewed 9% more sites than the average viewer.
-- 76% of respondents said that they repeatedly purchase from 1 or 2 favorite airline sites, because of "good price"; 17% because of "good packages."
-- 54% of survey respondents said that they prefer to use different sites when making their travel arrangements.
* Online analysis of those respondents revealed that the average number of sites viewed per user was 2.62 and the average user came back to the travel category 11.49 times during the research period.

Shopping Around for Travel
-- Online analysis reveals that low-cost airline site shoppers viewed an average of 17.8% more sites that the average airline shopper.
-- During the research period, the average shopper within the travel aggregator category came back 12% more times than the average shopper within the airline category.

The Difference between Planning Business and Pleasure Travel
-- Of total respondents who travel for business, 24% usually book their travel within 1 week in advance on an airline site; while 78% of total respondents who travel for leisure usually book their travel on an airline site 3 or more weeks in advance.
For more information and insights into online advertising statistics contact Mandy Mladenoff of SHIFT Communications, LLC -- 415-591-8420, mmladenoff@shiftcomm.com.