We are fastest growing travel agency online, says MyTravel

MyTravel is claiming it is the fastest growing travel agency website based on the latest figures from Hitwise.

It says visits to its websites, which include mytravel.com and airtours.co.uk, have increased by 64% over the last 12 months according to Hitwise, the internet traffic monitor.

MyTravel’s share of visits within the UK online travel agency category grew from 3.1% to 5.1% in May 2006 compared to May 2005, it claims.

“For the same period all the major tour operators have experienced growth but, for example, this is nearly four times faster growth than First Choice and over twice that of Thomson Holidays,” said a statement by MyTravel.

“Over the same period, lastminute.com’s share of visits fell by 9%, while Expedia’s dropped by 11%.”

But lastminute.com travel director John Bevan said the figures were misleading.

“When looking at the Hitwise data it is important to compare like with like. In this case MyTravel is comparing all its sites against lastminute.com, our core brand.

“If Hitwise took our group sites into consideration – which include travelocity.co.uk, bargainholidays.com, deckchair.com and onlinetravel.com in the UK – the comparison would be a fairer and more accurate of the current state of play in the online travel market.

“The numbers they are using make it look like lastminute.com has just 24% more traffic than MyTravel, but on a like-for-like group basis lastminute.com has 129% more traffic.”

The Hitwise figures for market share of visits for May 2006 are as follows:

Expedia 9.4% (10.6% in 2005)
Thomson 6.9% (5.3% in 2005)
Lastminute.com 6.3% (6.9% in 2005)
MyTravel 5.1% (3.1% in 2005)
Thomas Cook 5.0% (3.1% in 2005)
First Choice 3.7% (3.2% in 2005)

Russell Gould, director of digital marketing for MyTravel, said: “We have access to products that other online players such as lastminute.com and Expedia just can’t get hold of.

“For instance, we are selling the first ever package holidays to China via our Airtours and MyTravel sites. Expedia and lastminute.com have been very competitive with people who want to book flights and/or a hotel late in the day but this is no longer enough.”

He said since the start of this year, over two thirds of the online sales in the UK for MyTravel were for future and current season holidays, with only 27% of sales for late deals made within eight weeks of departure.

“We have the prime stock, are able to offer better deals and have a significantly better overall product for people’s main annual holidays,” added Gould.

“Our online consumer proposition only gets stronger when you couple this with our developments into the city break and dynamic packaging market.”

He said over 16% of online bookings on mytravel.com now come through people who have signed up to a targeted offer alert email service.

“In addition, we have redirected some of our traditional marketing spend towards carefully targeted online advertising to ensure that we are directing people who are interested in our range of services towards our websites,” said Gould.

He said online sales now account for over 20% of MyTravel’s charter holiday sales in the UK, compared to less than 5% two years ago, and Direct Holidays, the direct sell arm of MyTravel UK, is now regularly achieving 50% of its sales online.

“While it is clear that independent travel is definitely growing, and being fuelled by the internet, it is also clear that the online package holiday is still important as consumers like to know that they have support at the airport or on location if they need it”.

By Bev Fearis