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Despite recent falls in airline ticket sales on and off-line, online travel remains the largest category of consumer spending on the Web and is growing faster than other sectors, according to analysis by comScore. Travel packages are growing fast from a small base and the online hotel booking market is particularly competitive at present.
US consumers spent $9.1 billion on travel in the first quarter of 2003, representing growth of 31 percent versus Q1 2002 - significantly higher than the 17% growth in non-travel spending ($11.8 billion in Q1 2003) according to comScore.
Airline tickets have traditionally accounted for approximately two-thirds of all online travel sales but many major online travel suppliers are placing an increased emphasis on hotel and package sales given the recent decline in numbers flying. The success of consolidators like Expedia, Hotels.com and Orbitz has been noted by the major hotel operators, who are aggressively promoting their individually branded sites in order to reach buyers direct. The recently launched TravelWeb.com is a consolidator site partnering industry leaders including Hilton, Hyatt, Intercontinental, Marriott, Priceline and Starwood.
Packages are a small proportion of the total online travel market but the fastest growing at present, as the table shows:
Online Travel Spending by Sub-Category, Q1 2003: $millions
Excluding Auctions and Large Corporate Purchases
Source: comScore Networks
| Consumer Spending | Share of Online Travel Spending | % Change vs 1 Year Ago | |
| Online Travel | 9,116 | 100% | 31% |
| Airline | 6,127 | 67% | 28% |
| Hotel | 1,613 | 18% | 26% |
| Car Rental | 940 | 10% | 32% |
| Packages and All Other Travel* | 435 | 5% | 97% |
| *Includes package sales, cruise bookings, bus, rail and other | |||
Travel Category - Unique Visitors (million)
May 2003 U.S. Home, Work and University Users
Source: comScore Media Metrix
| Total Internet Users | 145.6 | ||
| Travel Category | 68.8 | ||
| mapquest.com | 28.5 | ||
| Expedia Travel | 16.5 | ||
| orbitz.com | 13.1 | ||
| Travelocity | 13.1 | ||
| Trip Network Inc. | 12.8 | ||
| AOL Proprietary Travel | 7.2 | ||
| hotwire.com | 6.8 | ||
| southwest.com | 6.5 | ||
| priceline.com | 5.9 | ||
| Hotels.com Sites | 5.4 | ||
Hotels.com, at number ten, is the only entrant in this table which is based mostly or entirely around hotels, but hotel sites are a growth area - the Hotels/Resorts category grew by 15 percent from April to May. In May Hotels.com had more than twice as many visitors as the second ranked site in the Hotels/Resorts category, Marriott. However, aggregating the sites run by the partners in Travelweb gives more than 7.2 million unique visitors, demonstrating once again the considerable muscle of top off-line brands when they get serious about the Web.
All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas unless otherwise stated.
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