Online booking in the travel and tourism sector has increased to become the medium of choice for almost 25% of consumers when organizing and booking vacations.

According to the German Association for Travel, online based sales in the travel sector have increased by one fifth and that in general 47% of web surfers have checked holiday prices online over the past 5 months.

During 2008, in Germany alone, more than 25 million travelers used the web in order to plan their vacation and to even put their plans into practice. Just 3 years ago that figure was just 38 percent or under 16 million travelers.

Based on research by european travel related associations the trend towards online activity has been siginifcantly accelerated by the economic downturn. "People become more aware of special offers, discounts and price arbitrages in hard times", the German organization Research Group on Vacation and Travel stated during a presentation at ITB Berlin.

They believe that the online operations of the tourism industry is going to be harmed the least, and will grow to 28% before the middle of this year.

Not surprising then that the market leading online-broker Expedia, confirmed that their user's are among the most ardent discount searchers. 61%  of their users want a trip as cheap as possible and over 41% are seeking out last minute deals.

Expedia marketing manager, Juergen Seiler, believes that the fear of unemployment is currently the key driver for an increase in those seeking last-minute offers.  "People who suddenly find themselves unemployed, and even those who are worried about upcoming redundancy, are more open minded for short-term offers", said Seiler.