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Online Travel Sales & Marketing divides Global Travellers on usefulness & quality

Web searches overtake personal recommendation as how people decide where to holiday says survey of 18,000 consumers globally

Seattle - June 22, 2005 - New global consumer research shows the British are among the world's most satisfied online travellers, but the Japanese, who are often stereotyped as international tourists, are dissatisfied with the quality of online travel services. 18,000 online consumers in 18 countries were polled by GMI Poll about their holiday plans and how they use the Internet for booking travel and accommodation.

The poll shows how online travel booking is beginning to develop faster in some markets than others. When asked how much of their travel they booked online, British respondents had the highest rate of consumers who booked all of their travel online - 22 percent compared to only nine percent of French and 11 percent of German respondents. Globally, only nine percent of online consumers polled by GMI book all of their travel online, whilst 43 percent said they book less than a quarter of their travel online.

Respondents were asked about whether their use of online travel had changed over the last 12 months. Among British respondents, a larger percentage of 18-29 year olds - 60 percent - their use of online travel had increased compared to older age groups - 37 percent. Among newer consumer groups the Internet also is popular for travel booking. For example, nearly a half of Chinese respondents said their use of online booking has increased compared to only 12 percent reporting a decrease.

About one in two consumers are satisfied with online travel services globally. This compares to 20 percent who consider online travel services mediocre and seven percent who call them not worth it. British online consumers appear to be happier with online travel services than some other countries - 44 percent say online services are very good, 44 percent say they are satisfactory and only 7 percent say they are mediocre.

The survey does point out that European markets outside of the UK present challenges for the online sales and marketing of travel. For example French online consumers are not using online travel services to the same extent as other Europeans. Over a half of the online French consumers polled only use the Internet to book less than a quarter of their travel. The opportunity is suggested by the related finding that when French online consumers use online travel services they rate them as satisfactory - 70 percent - or very good - 16 percent.

Asian countries appear to be the most dissatisfied with online travel booking - for example, over half of Japanese tourists rate online travel services as mediocre. However, very few write off online travel - only two percent of Japanese say online travel is not worth the bother.

One final indicator of the impact of the web on our travel choices, globally web search - 55 percent of respondents - edged out personal recommendation - 47 percent. In all countries except Brazil, India, Mexico and Russia the web was the favourite source of holiday recommendations.

For this travel poll, GMI Poll surveyed 1000 consumers in 18 countries: USA, UK, Australia, India, Japan, Russia, Canada, France, Brazil, China, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Poland, Denmark, Netherlands, Korea and Spain.

About GMI Poll

GMI Poll quickly and accurately gathers international opinions about topical issues and critical global events, with real-time results available in as little as 24 hours. GMI Poll is the only survey that polls global opinions in real time, online, and with statistically accurate results.

About GMI

GMI (Global Market Insite, Inc.) is the only company that provides comprehensive integrated solutions for global market intelligence for both market research firms and corporate market research departments at Global 2000 companies. Solutions include Net-MR®, a suite of software tools to manage and automate research throughout the project lifecycle, desktop analysis tools, 24x7x365 service bureau capabilities, and one of the world’s largest, highly profiled, double opt-in managed panels, spanning across 200 countries. In addition, GMI offers high-value, real-time enterprise feedback solutions for customer, partner and employee programs. Founded in 1999 with world headquartersin Seattle, Wash., GMI has operations on five continents.