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Yearly online travel spending tops $100B for first time

U.S. consumers spent $103 billion last year booking travel online, ComScore reports, with Southwest Airlines taking the top airline spot.

Shara Tibken Former managing editor
Shara Tibken was a managing editor at CNET News, overseeing a team covering tech policy, EU tech, mobile and the digital divide. She previously covered mobile as a senior reporter at CNET and also wrote for Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal. Shara is a native Midwesterner who still prefers "pop" over "soda."
Shara Tibken
More people negotiated their way to travel deals last year. Priceline
U.S. consumers spent more than $100 billion on online travel bookings last year, making 2012 the first year ever that the $100 billion figure was surpassed, according to a report from ComScore.

The company, which tracks Web site visitors and other information, said U.S. travel e-commerce sales reached $103 billion in 2012, up 9 percent from the previous year. Air travel bookings, up 10 percent from the previous year, accounted for nearly two-thirds of all travel spending.

The data is the latest signal of just how many consumer tasks are moving online. ComScore noted that travel was a pioneer in the e-commerce category 15 years ago, and it's still growing at nearly double-digit rates each year.

As for the leading air travel providers, Southwest Airlines had the most page views, with 20 percent market share. It was followed by Delta and United Airlines.

Expedia ranked as the top site in the online travel agents category with 32 percent share, followed by Priceline at 17 percent and Orbitz at 13 percent.

Here's the overall breakdown:

In 2012, yearly online travel spending topped $100 billion for the first time. ComScore