Online travel business sees traffic and conversion bumps

Online travel agents are holding up through the recession on business and leisure travel. A new report from research firm PhoCusWright and Compete.com, travel websites showed increases in both monthly traffic and sales conversions for the second quarter of 2009 relative to previous years.

Transactional travel websites – suppliers and online travel agencies – saw monthly visitors surge in June, with cruise lines gaining 19 percent year-over-year, and hotel chains picking up 13 percent. For the first half of the year, compared to 2007 and 2008, hotel and car-rental visitor traffic showed modest gains. Only the air sector of online travel-agency business posted a decline from last year, of 15 percent, but the conversion of air travel-oriented visits to sales increased.