Visitation to travel sites in India surges 50% in past year

comScore, Inc today, 2 June 2010, released a report on the top travel sites in India as measured by the comScore Media Metrix service. The report found that traffic to the travel category grew to more than 14 million visitors in April, an increase of 50% from the previous year, as a growing number of Indians turned to the convenience of the Web in search of travel deals and accommodations.

"travel sites now attract more than one-third of India's total Internet population, as more consumers are turning to the Web to fulfil their travel planning and booking needs," said Will Hodgman, comScore executive vice president for the Asia-Pacific region. "In the current economic climate, consumers are being more cost-conscious when making travel arrangements. With half of all visitors to the category frequenting two or more travel sites during the month, it's clear that consumers are taking the time to diligently compare prices prior to completing their transactions.

"In this competitive environment, online travel agents and suppliers face the challenge of building and maintaining consumer loyalty."

Travel sites reach 37% of online population in India

Approximately 14 million people age 15 and older visited travel sites in India from a home or work location in April, representing 37% of the total online population and an increase of 50% from the previous year. With rail transit one of the most prevalent means of travelling through the country, Indian Railways ranked as the most-visited travel site with 7.7 million visitors, up 46% versus year ago. Travel-booking site MakeMyTrip ranked second with 2.4 million visitors (up 39%) followed by Yatra Online with 1.9 million visitors (up 60%). Several sites experienced triple-digit growth including Travelocity (up 134% to 812,000 visitors), IndiaRailInfo.com (up 340% to 647,000 visitors) and eRail.in (up 160% to 464,000 visitors).

*Excludes visitation from public computers such as Internet cafes or access from mobile phones or PDAs.

Internet users in India display strong engagement on travel sites

Internet users averaged 38.4 minutes per visitor on travel sites during April and consumed 58 pages of content while visiting the category an average of 4 times throughout the month. India ranked second among all countries, behind only the United Kingdom, in terms of the average time spent per visitor in the category.

"Indians are clearly very careful and deliberate online shoppers when it comes to planning their travel," added Hodgman. "While this is an admirable trait among consumers, it demonstrates the importance of travel sites offering a very user-friendly service that is competitive on price. This will be the way to engender long term loyalty among this new wave of online travel bookers in the Indian market."

Visitors displayed especially strong engagement with top rail sites including Indian Railways, where visitors averaged 33 minutes, consumed 50 pages and visited nearly 4 times during the month, IndiaRailInfo.com (34 minutes, 66 pages, 2 visits) and eRail.in (28 minutes, 38 pages and nearly 4 visits).

*Excludes visitation from public computers such as Internet cafes or access from mobile phones or PDAs.