In 2007 Germans increasingly used the internet when planning their trips. One quarter (24%) booked at least one product online. In this context, the focus is not so much on package trips but on individual parts of travels. Thus, 12% of Germans bought a flight ticket online in 2007, 11% booked a hotel room and 6% bought a train ticket online.
The above findings were published by the German Association for Information Management, Telecommunications and New Media (BITKOM). The findings are based on the WebMonitor carried out jointly by BITKOM and the Forsa market research institute which interviewed 1001 Germans aged above 14.
A deficit is still registered with regard to online-bookings of travel packages, i.e. all-inclusive trips. Just 5% of Germans made use of this possibility in 2007. Also revealed was the fact that in 2007 online travel planning played a more important role in the West of Germany than in the East. While in the old Federal Laender 25% of citizens booked a product or service online, this percentage was just 17% in the East. The difference in usage was much smaller with regard to gender. Men reached 25% in this respect closely followed by women with 22%.
Conspicuously high is the share of people above 60 among online bookers which amounted to 10%. With regard to other kinds of internet usage, this age bracket was, however, lagging significantly behind the average. 