Summer Tourism: School is Back In Session for Travel Agencies

Hold on to your hammock: school is out, and Americans will be taking more than 325 million vacations in June, July and August. About 65 million of them were researched or booked on-line.

If that is not enough to suggest on-line opportunity for travel agencies, consider this:

The on-line travel market is estimated at $60 billion and growing fast; On-line bookings average $750, versus $400 off-line; In 2006, for the first time, more trips were booked on-line than by any other method; The next most-common method, phone booking, plunged 16 percent from 2005, and Travelers who use the Internet to plan and purchase trips almost always visit multiple sites.

Big players are cashing in. On-line travel agents like Orbitz