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Luxury travel flying high online

March 29, 2006 |

Eighty-seven percent of travelers who had stayed at a luxury resort at least twice in the past two years used the Internet for at least one part of their travel planning, according to a recent Yahoo! Search Marketing study.

A study released by Yahoo! Search Marketing found that 87 percent of consumers who go on high end vacations use the Internet to some capacity in making their travel arrangements. Yahoo! surveyed 401 people who had stayed at a luxury hotel at least twice in the past two years, and found in their pool consumers with an average income of $70,000, and generally between the ages of 40 and 64.

The study found that 61 percent of respondents used the Internet to purchase their most recent vacation. Yahoo! broke down the luxury travelers by which tools they used to make their decisions: 57 percent used general search engines, 54 percent consulted online travel agencies, 44 percent went to online travel suppliers, while 10 percent used chatboards and blogs. Almost half, 49 percent, of respondents ended up purchasing their tickets from an online travel agency.

Other findings of the study include:

- Luxury travelers are largely between the ages of 40 and 64 with an average income of over 70k and take nearly four vacations per year, mostly concentrated in the U.S. Half of the vacations planned include luxury accommodations or cruises.

- The majority (87%) of all luxury travelers used the Internet and 57% used search to research and shop for travel. 61% purchased their latest trip online.

- 65% of luxury travelers claimed they “couldn’t make a good decision without search”.

- Search provides luxury travelers with information that can’t easily be found elsewhere (77%) and also helps them learn about unique and exclusive packages (70%).

- Keyword search is unsurpassed as a comprehensive (81%) and fast (77%) source for gathering information about luxury travel.

- Search was cited as the most widely used source for travel research by 57% of survey participants. Traditional media sources yielded less than 20% usage.

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