2009 will be the first year that online travel bookings in the U.S. will experience single-digit growth, forecasts PhoCusWright, while a Travel Weekly article reports the first monthly double-digit decline in U.S. travel sales volume.
Unsurprisingly, consumers are cutting back on their expenditure and leisure travel is one of the first to be trimmed back, or cut. This has been reflected in PhoCusWright's latest forecast of a 9% growth in online travel bookings to total $98.2 billion this year, reported Hospitality Net.
Not all online travel providers would fare the same, found the research. For instance, rail sales would grow by 28% while hotel bookings would grow by 8%.
According to PhoCusWright, the reason for the continued success of online travel booking was "consumer comfort with online purchasing, perception of the Web as having the lowest prices and supplier disincentives for booking through other channels".
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