• by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer, May 11, 2004

Visitors Travel In Circles Searching for Travel Information

In the latest Industry Report on the Online Travel sector from Hitwise, key highlights tell a significant story:

- Over 30% of all visits to sites in the Travel category are referred from other Travel related sites. Over 45% of visits leaving a site within the Travel category are going to another Travel related site.

- While the market share of the Travel Agencies sub-category is increasing, the major agency sites; Expedia, Travelocity and Orbitz, are losing market share to sites such as Trip Advisor, Cheap Tickets and Hotwire.

- The market share of visits to Travel sites in theU.S.(compared with all Internet sites) has grown over 28% from January 2003 to February 2004. Since December 2003, market share of visits in the Travel category has increased over 38%.

- The Travel category is recording a relatively small percentage of traffic from Email Services, indicating that online travel vendors are not currently leveraging web-based electronic mail as the primary means of driving visits to their sites.

- The predominant demographic in the Travel category is: Female (58.3%), over 35 years of age (69.9%), with household earnings over $75,000 per year (41%).

Top 10 travel sites for the
week ending March 13, 2004

	Market Share of visits to Travel sites
maps.yahoo.com	7.61%
www.expedia.com	6.40%
www.travelocity.com	5.09%
www.mapquest.com	4.55%
www.orbitz.com	4.13%
www.southwest.com	2.55%
www.hotwire.com	2.26%
www.cheaptickets.com	1.82%
www.tripadvisor.com	1.81%
travel.yahoo.com	1.75%

Email for a copy of the Hitwise U.S. Online Travel Report

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