CHICAGO—Surging growth in international travel is driving
revenue increases at the foreign units of US online travel agencies and has
spurred heated competition for a bigger slice of the lucrative and expanding
market.
Companies like Orbitz Worldwide Inc and Priceline.com Inc
have ramped up efforts to attract customers to their sites overseas, and at
least one US travel site, Vayama, has devoted itself entirely to international
bookings for travel to and from the United States.
Growth in bookings made outside the United States far
outpaces the growth in US domestic bookings. That is partly because more people
are traveling and partly because travelers are increasingly comfortable trusting
their reservations to Web sites, said Orbitz Chief Executive Steve Barnhart.
Bookings on European online travel agencies or the European
divisions of US agencies are projected to total $62.9 billion in 2007, up from
$24.5 billion in 2004, according to travel research company PhoCusWright.
—Reuters
