Online search drove nearly 10 million travel purchases in th UK

Media Contacts, Yahoo! Search Marketing and comScore Media Metrix have jointly released a new research that quantifies the impact of Web search on UK travel purchases. The research identified consumers who make travel-related searches, analysed their online travel search and buying behaviour and surveyed them for additional insight into their attitudes and offline purchase behaviour.

The results showed the three-month period from December 2005 through February 2006 generated 9.8 million travel purchases by 7.5 million UK consumers using Web searches to help plan their trip. Eighty-five percent of travel searchers reported that they completed a travel purchase either online or offline within 90 days of their initial search.
When examining the online behaviour of UK Internet users in December 2005, only 10 percent of online travel transactions linked to search occurred immediately following the initial search referral, while the remaining 90 percent took place in subsequent days and weeks (considered latent purchases). Indeed, fully 45 percent of the purchases actually occurred more than four weeks later. Latent purchasing was even more dramatic among those who initially searched on destination-related terms, with 95 percent of purchasing taking place after the initial search referral.

Paul Frampton, head of digital at Media Contacts UK, commented: â