• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, January 31, 2005

Travelers who make purchases on the Internet appear to be more likely to buy airline tickets than to rent automobiles or make hotel reservations, according to a survey by BURST! Media released Monday.

The BURST! study, based on a January survey of 3,500 adults who had traveled overnight at least once in the last six months, found that 79.3 percent of those who made online purchases bought airline tickets. A smaller percentage--67.7--booked hotel rooms sight unseen on the Web, while only 37.5 percent rented cars online. Overall, 43 percent of the BURST! survey respondents made some type of travel-related purchase online.

The results indicate that many consumers view airplane tickets as a commodity, where the only meaningful differences are price and travel time, said BURST! Market Research Manager Chuck Moran. Therefore, said Moran, buying airplane tickets is "a relatively easy decision to make." BURST! also reported that women who used the Internet to research travel were more likely to make online travel purchases than men who research online--but that conclusion contradicts some other research in the field.

BURST! found that 64.6 percent of women who researched airfares online went on to purchase tickets, and 64.1 percent of women who explored car rentals on the Web reserved a car online. Only 59 percent of men who investigated airfares online bought tickets on the Web, and just 58.5 percent of men who used the Web to scrutinize car reservations rented a car online.

But JupiterResearch analyst Diane Clarkson said that her research did not support the finding that men and women converted from online travel researchers to purchasers at different rates. A JupiterResearch survey last year of nearly 3,000 online consumers found no major differences between the percentages of male and female online travel researchers who made purchases.

When it came to online travel, the only major difference between men and women found by JupiterResearch was that 43 percent of women--compared to 34 percent of men--spent time in advance researching activities and attractions in their destination cities.