Online Travel is Booming

A third of the world’s travel sales will be booked online by the end of 2012, according to travel industry research firm PhoCusWright. Online leisure and unmanaged business travel bookings will grow twice as fast as the total market, surpassing $313 billion by 2012, the company said. It also projected that global travel bookings will increase 6 percent in both 2011 and 2012, by which point the market will have recovered from 2009 losses. “As online penetration growth in the more mature U.S. and European travel markets slows, travel companies are looking to the Asia-Pacific and Latin America regions for the next pot of gold,” says Lorraine Sileo, vice president of research for PhoCusWright.