Gays More Likely to Book Travel Online

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (U.S. Newswire) --April 26, 2005 - According to a recent nationwide survey, gay, lesbian and bisexual (GLB) adults who are online are more likely to book hotel reservations through online portals than heterosexual online adults. While fully 35 percent of heterosexual respondents said they don't book travel online, fewer than one in five (18%) GLB respondents said they did not.

About one-half (52%) of GLB respondents were likely to visit Travelocity.com when making hotel reservations, compared to 40 percent of non-gay respondents. Gay and non-gay use of Expedia.com did not vary much (45 percent of GLBs said they are likely to visit Expedia.com
compared with 40% of non-gays). Forty-six percent of GLB respondents are likely to visit Orbitz.com compared to 33 percent of non-gays.

These are the results of a survey of 2,630 U.S. adults, of whom 177 were self-identified as gay, lesbian or bisexual. The online survey was conducted between March 8 and 14, 2005 by Harris Interactive(r), a worldwide market research and consulting firm, in conjunction with Witeck-Combs Communications, Inc., a strategic public relations and marketing communications firm with special expertise in the gay market.

Many GLB online consumers rely on gay-specific travel expertise when queried on the type of resources used when planning destination travel. Outside of the assistance gays seek from friends and relatives (58%), gay-specific websites (32%), such as Bgay.com and PlanetOut, top the list of resources gays use to learn about future leisure travel destinations they consider visiting. Close behind are national gay magazines (25%), such as Passport, Genre, and Out Traveler, and gay-specific travel books (22%), such as Damron and Odysseus guides.

"Clearly, the honeymoon with online travel sites is likely to grow as more gay and lesbian consumers flock to specialized media and other gay-specific travel and tourism resources. When making leisure travel destination decisions, GLB travelers are seeking direction on how they can spend their dollars on both gay-friendly travel channels and destinations." said John Butler, Senior Marketing and Communications Strategist for Witeck-Combs Communications.