WHEN it comes to shopping online for the best bargains in travel and hotel accommodation, Singaporeans are tops among their Asia Pacific counterparts.

A survey by global information and media company Nielsen released yesterday showed that Singaporeans are
savvy Internet users who regularly book their air tickets, hotel and tour reservations online.

In The Nielsen Global Online Survey on Internet shopping habits, 42 per cent of those respondents with Net access
here said they had bought and reserved airline tickets online last year.

This is almost double the figure in other countries in the region, where airline reservations took up only 24 per cent of total purchases.

Tours and hotel accommodation came next on Singaporeans' list, at 32 per cent. Clothing, shoes and accessories were third, at 31 per cent.

Readers my paper spoke to are not surprised by the findings.

Mr Ken Lee, 27, a senior executive at Singapore International Foundation, is such a consumer. An online shopper of nine years, he said he prefers the flexibility and convenience of the Internet when booking air tickets
and accommodation - even when travel agents have better offers.

He explained: "Often, there are photos which let me view the hotels first, and doing so online makes for easy comparison."

Frequent online shopper

Stephanie Yap, 24, said people "can find better deals online" as they bypass the middlemen such as tour agencies.

The survey also found that the number of global online consumers has risen from 627 million two years ago to 875 million last year.

South Korea was the No. 1 country with the highest percentage of shopping done online - 99 per cent of its people with Net access do so.

Britain, Germany, Japan (all at 97 per cent) and the United States (94 per cent) rounded up the top five.

Singapore was No. 26 worldwide and No. 7 in Asia Pacific, behind Japan, Taiwan and China.

While Singaporeans were not the most avid online consumers in the world, they were among the more loyal ones.

About 58 per cent of the respondents said they went back to the site they bought from regularly, while others preferred recommendations from friends and online reviews.

Ms Fiona Lee, director of online research for Nielsen Singapore, said this shows it is vital to capture potential shoppers "early and create a positive shopping experience".

Then, they are more likely to capture consumers' loyalty and money, she added.

The Nielsen Global Online Survey is the largest half-yearly survey of its kind, aimed at gauging consumer confidence levels.

This latest survey, conducted from October to November last year, polled 26,312 online users aged 15 and above in 48 markets in Asia Pacific, Europe, North America and the Middle East. Of them, 500 respondents were from Singapore.