CHICAGO— Thanks to bargain-hunting leisure travelers and the growing use of Internet sites for more than just airplane tickets, the web travel business is strong, and the outlook is brighter than that of the industry as a whole, according to recent reports. “All of a sudden consumers are realizing this isnt just something for the most technologically advanced. Its for everybody, said Henry Harteveldt, a travel analyst at Forrester Research. While overall industry revenue is expected to finish the year down 20% from last year, online leisure travel sales will wind up at a healthy $14.2 billion, according to Forrester. That is scaled back from the $16.7 billion forecast before the weakened economy and the terrorist attacks took their toll, but still 16% higher than a year ago. Nearly 3 million more U.S. households, or 17.8 million in all, bought travel online this year. Six-month-old Orbitz is the newcomer among the five busiest travel sites – behind Travelocity and Expedia and ahead of deep discounters Hotwire and Priceline. Backed by five major U.S. airlines, Orbitz saw a post-Sept. 11 falloff in travel before recovering by early November to a new sales high of 30,000 to 60,000 tickets a day. Its goal is to turn a profit by mid-2002. More than prices have changed since Sept. 11. Internet travel sites are also providing more information about weather, security requirements and potential snags. The airlines own websites, where bookings have also risen dramatically lately, are doing the same thing. Some of Orbitzs strength may be attributable to intensive advertising. According to Jupiter Media Matrix Orbitz accounted for 44% of all online travel advertising the week after Thanksgiving; Internet surfers are seeing Orbitzs ubiquitous pop-up windows. Other travel sites have been having equally happy holidays. Analysts say customers have increasingly been going to Web agencies to look not just for cheap air fares but for good hotel rates, vacation homes or ski packages.
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