CONNECTION: HK posts strong growth in online travel bookings

"Travel is proving an increasingly popular activity to research and purchase on the internet in Hong Kong, with audiences up 47 per cent over the same time last year, and out-performing total annual internet audience growth of only 21 per cent,

said Hugh Bloch, managing director, Nielsen//NetRatings Asia.

"Traffic peaked in November, with 228,000 surfers visiting online travel sites to browse and plan their Christmas and Chinese New Year travel plans, with 12 per cent of all internet users visiting a travel site in the month for this purpose."

Bloch said surfing the web for travel information was a pastime particularly popular in the 25 to 35 age bracket in Hong Kong, with the audience profile strongly skewed towards males. "There is a lot of choice out there for travel. It's a fairly fragmented market, with the top travel agency, wingontravel.com, receiving only 15 per cent of all online travel visitors in December 2001.

However, our figures suggest that once surfers find a travel site they like, they become quite loyal, returning time and again to the same site and the same pages for information and travel deals."