Survey Shows Consumers Migrating to Travel Supplier Sites
June 7, 2006
Survey Shows Consumers Migrating to Travel Supplier Sites
June 7, 2006 – comScore Networks, which measures and analyzes consumer behavior and attitudes, has released an analysis of the online travel market in the United States. The group found that more and more people are going online when making travel plans. Nearly 150 million consumers visited a travel Web site in 2005, a 35 percent increase over the previous year. Annual online travel revenues exceeded $60 billion in 2005, representing a 20 percent increase versus 2004, with all travel segments posting gains.
As the online travel industry has grown and matured, consumers have been slowly migrating from online agencies to branded airline, hotel or car rental supplier sites. However, both online agency and supplier sites are growing, with agencies posting a 19 percent gain versus 2004 and suppliers recording 21 percent growth. comScore data also shows that the branded supplier sites captured approximately 57 percent of online travel dollars in 2005, up from 55 percent in 2004.
Over the last three years, online agencies have experienced greater competition from supplier sites in the airline and hotel segments and, to a lesser extent, in car rentals. Supplier sites, which accounted for 53 percent of airline ticket sales in 2003, have grown in popularity in recent years to capture 58 percent of airline ticket sales in 2005. A similar pattern has emerged in the hotel segment, where supplier sites have grown from a 52 percent share in 2003 to 59 percent in 2005, with the growth from 2004 to 2005 being particularly strong.
Conducted as part of the Travel Industry Overview, a comScore survey revealed that, on average, travel shoppers visit approximately three sites when planning leisure travel. The dominant reason for doing so is to search for the lowest price. Few respondents cited rewards programs or flexible dates and times as reasons for "shopping around." When people begin the process of researching travel services online, 46 percent indicated that the first site they visited was either Expedia, Travelocity or Orbitz — nearly double the proportion of people who reported starting their research at a branded airline, hotel or car rental site (24 percent). The top reason stated for beginning at Expedia, Orbitz or Travelocity was efficiency in seeking the lowest price (22 percent), with an additional 17 percent indicating they expect these sites to deliver "the best deal."
For more information, visit http://www.comscore.com/.