Online Travel Sites' Recovery In JeopardyOnline Travel Sites' Recovery In Jeopardy

Internet travel sites have largely recovered from post Sept. 11 usage drop thanks to a blitz of promotional campaigns, says a new study. But more trouble may be ahead after Monday's tragic crash, especially if brokers don't find new ways to keep customers on their sites.

According to a study by Internet performance analysis firm webHancer, online travel agencies such as Expedia, Orbitz, and Priceline saw traffic drop as much as 60% in the weeks following Sept. 11. But in the last few weeks, that trend has reversed. "What we're seeing is that traffic levels have recovered fully," says webHancer's corporate communications manager, Andrew MacDougall. "Online travel agencies have been engaging in a holiday travel advertising blitz, and it's paying off."

Meanwhile, MacDougall says that Monday's American Airlines crash in Queens, N.Y., actually drove traffic up almost 20% on individual airlines' pages--though traffic was down about 5% on brokerage sites like Expedia. He says whether Monday's events will pull online travel back down depends on what investigators ultimately determine to be the cause of the accident.

WebHancer's data also found another hurdle for online travel brokers. Travel sites in general have a much lower "abandon rate" than most other Web pages, meaning that travel-minded surfers are much less likely to click stop or the back button when a page is slow to load. But the company's analysis showed that the majority of users who do abandon a travel site go directly to a competitor, suggesting that travelers have no problem taking their business elsewhere if a Web site doesn't perform. "When site performance is bad, people are going away," says MacDougall, "and they're going to the competition."