• by Masha Geller , May 23, 2001

If you're looking to advertise to people with the most buying power on the Internet, netScore has a suggestion - travel sites.

Travel sites continued to hold a strong presence in the latest reporting of netScore's top 20 Buying Power Index (BPI) for the month of April, according to DoubleClick's Diameter division and comScore Networks. Additionally, business supply sites had the highest buying power increase from March to April.

A total of seven travel sites were reported in April's top 20 list. For the third consecutive month, southwest.com (575) was the leading site in the overall travel category, reflecting the continued propensity of visitors to buy online at this site.

Additional new travel sites that rose to the top 20, most likely the result of holiday travel, were hoteldiscounts.com, which had the highest BPI of 499, followed by hertz.com (483), lowestfare.com (462), and travelscape.com (460).

For the business supply sites, officemax.com and officedepot.com had the greatest increase in buying power. Officemax.com rose from 460 in March to 641 in April, while officedepot.com increased from 463 in last month to 598 in April.

"The BPI data indicates that visitors to sites such as officemax.com are increasing their overall spending online," said Doug Knopper, Vice President and General Manager of Diameter. "Significantly, southwest.com continues to have the highest BPI among travel sites, both indicative of the quality and quantity of its audience. Clearly, this data shows that visitors to these sites are not only browsing online but are actually making online transactions."

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