YPartnership study reveals online travelers' first port of call

What's the first site that holiday makers visit when selecting which destination to head for, which airline to use or which hotel/resort to stay at? New findings from YPartnership shine a light on online travelers' use of the Internet to plan and book trips.

by Helen Leggatt

Two-thirds of leisure travelers now turn to the Internet to plan at least some of their trip, up from 35% in 2000. Over half (56%) now make reservations for transport, or accommodation, online according to the findings of YPartnership's "2009 National Travel MONITOR".

Usually, the first thing travelers do when planning a holiday is look at where in the world to go. When selecting a destination, 34% of online travelers cite a search engine as their first port of call followed by the website of a national tourist office/CVB (22%) and online travel agency such as Travelocity or Expedia.

However, when researching where to stay and who to fly with, online travelers are heading first to travel agency websites (31% and 42% respectively) and the websites of specific airlines (41%), a hotel chain (21%) or individual resort/hotel (10%).

"Consumers' search behavior has changed in recent years as people have become more familiar with search technology and the number of travel planning/purchasing sites has grown exponentially," said Peter C. Yesawich, chairman and CEO of Ypartnership.

Tags: airline, Expedia, hotel, online research, online travel, online traveler, resort, search engine, travel agent, Travelocity, YPartnership