No wonder that Expedia’s stock has been soaring — up more than 90 percent in the past year and one of the top performers in Seattle tech for 2012. A new report out from comScore indicates that U.S. travel e-commerce hit $103 billion last year — the first time it has topped $100 billion and up nine percent on the prior year.
Expedia remains the top dog in online travel, accounting for 31 percent of all page views in the category. (It had $4 billion in worldwide sales in 2012). But it’s not all good news. The leader in online travel saw its page view count drop by five percent year-over-year.
Kayak, BookingBuddy and Priceline.com all saw gains. But comScore’s John Mangano notes that page views don’t always equate to better businesses.
“Interestingly, not all sites are equally effective in turning page views into transactions,” said Mangano. “In some instances we see that sites require greater engagement to get to a booking, while others serve more as a venue for comparison pricing but lose out on the sale as their visitors go to other sites to book. So while winning the traffic battle is an important part of customer acquisition, travel companies who optimize their strategies at other phases of the funnel are the ones who ultimately drive the greatest conversion.”
Here’s a look at the traffic results from comScore:
