• by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research, January 20, 2005

Two Million Virtual Tourists A Day on the Internet

A new survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project finds that 45% of online American adults have taken advantage of virtual tours of another location online. That represents 54 million adults who have used the internet to venture somewhere else. On a typical day, more than two million people are using the internet to take a virtual tour, says the report.

Some of the most popular virtual tour destinations include museums, tourist and vacation locales, colleges and prep schools, real estate, historical exhibits, parks and nature preserves, public places such as the White House and the Taj Mahal, and hotels and motels.

The report opins that the spread of broadband connections has made virtual tours easier and encouraged those who create tours to create richer tour experiences through streamed tours. Some 60% of those who have broadband connections at home and 62% of those who have broadband connections at work have taken virtual tours.

Unlike many other internet activities, virtual tours are not the province of young internet users. 52% of younger Baby Boomers have taken virtual tours, compared to just 37% of those in Generation Y. Those who take virtual tours are also highly educated: 58% of the internet users with college or graduate degrees have taken virtual tours. In addition, tour takers are slightly more likely to be urban than rural.

54 million online Americans have taken virtual tours. The percentage of that 54 million virtual tour takers who fall into each group are:

Men	47%
Women	53%
Race/ethnicity
Whites	80%
Blacks	7%
Hispanics	9%
Other/Refused to answer	4%
Age
Generation Y (ages 18-27)	16%
Generation X (ages 28-39)	27%
Younger Baby Boomers (ages 40-49)	28%
Older Baby Boomers (ages 50-58)	21%
Matures (ages 59-68)	5%
After work (age 69+)	3%
Household income
Live in households earning less than $30,000	15%
$30,000-$49,999	22%
$50,000-$74,999	21%
$75,000 or more	42%
Educational attainment
Not high school graduate	4%
High School graduate	23%
Some college	27%
College and graduate school degree	46%
Community type
Rural	13%
Suburban	55%
Urban	32%
Internet access at home
Dial up	36%
Broadband	64%
Parental status
Parent with child under 18 living at home	44%
Non-parent	56%

Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project November 2004 survey.
N=537 internet users. Margin of error is +-5%.

You can find out more here in this pdf.