The Change Mariner

Corporate Travel: Online Booking Soars

CNN:

For many business travelers planning a trip still means reaching for a telephone instead of keyboarding onto the Internet.

But that is changing, according to a new report, which suggests that online travel booking is capturing an increasing share of the corporate travel dollar.

Companies trying to save money and cut the best travel deals are increasingly shifting responsibility for travel arrangements onto their employees through on-line systems, according to Susan Steinbrink, who wrote the report for PhoCusWright Inc. The company supplies the travel and tourism industry with research and forecasts.

Steinbrink's report estimates that about 23 percent of U.S. corporate travel bookings are now made online. That means about $18.8 billion worth of air, car rental and hotel industry revenue came from bookings made via on-line sites operated by the suppliers themselves or on sites such as those run by Orbitz, Expedia, Travelocity and other travel bookers.

The study estimates that such online corporate bookings will grow to 38.5 percent of total sales in 2006, when they are expected to reach $36.5 billion.