Carlson Wagonlit Travel handled "nearly $24 billion" in client travel spend during 2010, up from $21.4 billion the previous year

, according to Andrew Winterton, the travel management company's president for suppliers, products & technology. Speaking Tuesday at a KDS client and supplier conference in Paris, Winterton claimed CWT remains the world's largest TMC, a position it wrested from American Express a couple of years ago. He also revealed that the proportion of bookings made online by European customers in 2010 was 21 percent, up from 16 percent in 2009 and 6 percent in 2005. The U.S. figure for 2010 was 55 percent. Somewhat surprisingly, the highest proportion of online bookings in Europe was in Austria (40 percent), comfortably beating such major markets as Germany (25 percent) and the United Kingdom (23 percent). At 7 percent, Italy had the lowest figure.