Hitwise rates Flairview Travel in the Top Ten

SYDNEY, 23 May 2003 – Competitive intelligence organisation, Hitwise, has released its quarter one 2003 Top Ten survey, rating both Flairview Travel’s sites, HotelClub (www.hotelclub.net) and RatesToGo (www.ratestogo.com), among travel industry leaders.

HotelClub has ranked in the top ten websites (Travel Destinations and Accommodation category) since the second quarter of 2002 according to Hitwise.

Traffic ranking statistics on Alexa Internet (www.alexa.com) position HotelClub competitively against the major online travel companies worldwide, in addition to this HotelClub, is the leading Asian Pacific travel site. The nearest Asian based online travel company is over 3,000 places behind in terms of traffic rankings, with other Asian competitors up to 50,000 places behind.

As well as its own sites, Flairview Travel also has over 4,000 online affiliates distributing Flairview Travel content. This network provides Flairview Travel with a massive representation online.

The results are also positive for Flairview Travel’s express booking site – RatesToGo. This service has established itself in the highly competitive “last minute” field by receiving Top Ten status (Travel Destinations and Accommodation category) for the second consecutive quarter.

It has been a very successful period for RatesToGo, which was only launched one year ago. RatesToGo has consistently grown over the past twelve months with month-on-month growth of over 100 per cent.

Ms Chloe Lim, Director of Marketing for Flairview Travel said, “RatesToGo has had exceptional growth since we launched the site. This success stems from recognising what drives consumers in today’s environment and providing them with a service that meets these needs. RatesToGo has many key points of differences from other express sites, including bookings up to 20 days in advance, a “Lowest Price Guarantee” and one of the most extensive language service available, including eight languages”.

“We believe that our position will only strengthen in 2003 with a number of improvements to be introduced to both our sites. A major change has been introducing integrated service that allows customers to search both websites simultaneously, providing users with the choice of planned or last minute bookings”, said Ms Lim

Mr. Adrian Giles, Co-Founder of Hitwise said, “With more than 1.5% of all Internet traffic and over 500 websites competing in the Hitwise rankings for the Travel Destinations & Accommodation category, achieving two top 10 positions is certainly a great achievement for Flairview Travel.”

#Ends#

For further information please contact:
Ms Chloe Lim
Director of Marketing
Flairview Travel
Tel: +61 2 8263 5106
Fax: +61 2 9264 0559
Email: [email protected]

About HotelClub
HotelClub (www.hotelclub.net) is an online accommodation provider offering hotel bookings for up to 12 months ahead. It offers a choice of over 6,000 hotels – at savings of up to 60% – in 36 countries and 750 cities worldwide. The website also features downloadable maps of hotel locations and its services in seven languages, Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese and Spanish. Its head office is in Sydney with a further nine offices in France, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States.

About RatesToGo
RatesToGo (www.ratestogo.com) is a last minute accommodation booking service featuring rates that are at least 60% less than usual hotel rates. It offers bookings up to three weeks in advance (similar sites offer 14 days in advance) for accommodation, ranging from two to five star hotels, across 13 countries worldwide including Australia, France, Netherlands, Spain, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and New Zealand. RatesToGo also offers customers a lowest rate guarantee – find a cheaper deal and RatesToGo will match it. Services are available in eight languages Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese and Spanish.

About Hitwise
Hitwise is the world’s leading online competitive intelligence service providing companies with daily insights into their online competitive environment. Hitwise uses ISP user activity logs, opt-in mega panels and proprietary Internet trawling technologies to anonymously monitor the surfing habits of local Internet users, covering home, work and educational usage.
Since 1998, Hitwise have built the largest sample of Internet users in the world, with more than 25 Million people under measurement across 6 key markets. Hitwise is headquartered in Melbourne, Australia and offers its service in Asia Pacific, the UK and the USA.