eFiles: May 7, 2001

Still Surfing the Friendly E-Skies ...

Despite the recent economic slowdown, the U.S. online travel booking industry will continue to draw more and more customers, according to a report from Jupiter Media Metrix Inc., based in New York.

According to the report, 29 percent of U.S. online consumers now use the Internet to purchase travel, while another 29 percent use the Internet to research travel and then purchase offline. Total U.S. leisure and business online travel purchases will more than triple in the next five years, from $18 billion last year to $63 billion in 2006.

... But Still Wanting to Kick the Tires, Too

It looks like all those U.S. travelers will be hopping into used cars to take their vacations this summer. In a recent study conducted for online automotive site Autobytel.com Inc. by Opinion Research Corp., of Princeton, N.J., the slumping economy is convincing 39 percent of U.S. adults that they don?t need that smell of new car wrapped around them, but they?re still using the Internet to check out preowned wheels before buying.

Forty-seven percent of the respondents with household incomes of less than $50,000 said they?re more likely to purchase a used car or truck than a new one. Only 29 percent of those with higher incomes said the economy would influence them into going the used-car route.

Seventy percent of all respondents, however, said that buying online would help them to buy a better car for less money.