| Tiger Airways – Market Entrant Online Analysis |
Tiger Airways' recent announcement of its intention to establish a new domestic Australian airline resulted in an immediate spike in visits to the low-cost carrier's website by Australian Internet users. According to Hitwise, the world's leading online competitive intelligence service, market share of visits to Tiger Airways (www.tigerairways.com) more than doubled between the weeks ending 3 February 2007 and 17 February 2007 to gain 2.81% of the Commercial Airlines industry.
The intense level of online competition between airline brands Virgin Blue, Qantas and Jetstar raises the question as to whether there is room in Australia for another domestic carrier. Hitwise Airlines industry data indicate that Virgin Blue and Qantas accounted for 28.53% and 27.68% respectively in market share in January 2007. Jetstar, the low-cost carrier brand of Qantas, followed in third position with 15.81% share. The three airlines accounted for 72.02% share in industry visits between them.
In the Singapore market, the collective share of the top 3 players was more diluted, with Singapore Airlines, Jetstar and Tiger Airways accounting for 60% of visits to the online Airlines industry in January 2007. The UK was even more competitive, where easyJet, British Airways and RyanAir accounted for 44.13% share. While there are different geographical and population considerations in the Singapore and UK markets, it does indicate the propensity of consumers to compare beyond the leading brands for their travel needs.
Search Terms to Inform a Domestic Route Strategy
Tiger Airways' website poll for users to vote on their flight preferences reflects the airline's strategy to target secondary airports and destinations around Australia. Hitwise Search Term charting also offers insight into what destinations are top of mind amongst users.
The below chart indicates that searches for Hamilton Island that resulted in a visit to the Travel industry have increased substantially between February 2006 and February 2007, overtaking searches to major cities, including Melbourne and Sydney. Other destinations to grow significantly in search term share included Darwin, Adelaide, Sunshine Coast, Gold Coast and Newcastle.
The Hitwise Search Term Suggestions report also provides insight into consumer demand, with top domestic variations on 'flights to' including, 'cheap flights to melbourne', 'flights to sydney', 'cheap flights to perth', and 'flights to tasmania'.
Opportunities for Domestic Tourism
The launch of another airline bodes well for domestic tourism, if Tiger Airways succeeds in providing cost-effective incentives for Australians to see more of their country. For other travel operators around the country, it would make sense to capitalise on the increased competition by reassessing their provision of motivational content. Hitwise Industry Clickstream data indicate that the Airlines industry sends 4% of its downstream visits to Travel - Destinations & Accommodation websites, while in the UK the referral rate is double at 8%. Regional airports also have the opportunity to strengthen their online partnerships with domestic airlines as new routes are announced.
2007 will be an important year for Australian consumers in terms of both domestic and regional travel, where there are potentially enormous benefits for all travel operators and ancillary industries.
Australian Share of Searches in Travel Industry
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| Automotive - Motorcycling |
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The following report lists the most popular terms typed into a search engine over the 4 weeks ending 24/02/2007 that resulted in traffic to websites classified by Hitwise within the 'Automotive - Motorcycling' industry. For example, the most popular search term was 'bikesales' representing 1.28% of all search terms that delivered users to websites classified by Hitwise in the 'Automotive - Motorcycling' industry.
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| 1. |
bikesales |
1.28 |
| 2. |
kawasaki |
1.00 |
| 3. |
bikepoint |
1.00 |
| 4. |
harley davidson |
0.87 |
| 5. |
bike sales |
0.75 |
| 6. |
ducati |
0.69 |
| 7. |
yamaha |
0.64 |
| 8. |
honda |
0.59 |
| 9. |
orange county choppers |
0.54 |
| 10. |
peter stevens |
0.52 |
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| Triple J - triplej.abc.net.au |
The website of ABC youth radio network Triple J provides information on broadcast frequencies, DJs, competitions and programme schedules. With the Hottest 100 countdown on Australia Day, the Triple J website increased its rank to 193 amongst all sites visited by Australian Internet users for the week ending 27 January.
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| Entertainment - Movies |
| The Movies category features all sites that are primarily concerned with film and video movies, including sites that focus on particular movies or movie stars, or sites that provide reviews, news and Hollywood gossip, plus cinema websites and video stores. |
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| 38.6% |
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of traffic to this category was directed at domestic sites.
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| 1. |
Computers and Internet |
57.70% |
| 2. |
Search Engines |
35.37% |
| 3. |
Entertainment |
22.35% |
| 4. |
Movies |
8.85% |
| 5. |
Email Services |
6.56% |
| 6. |
Portal Frontpages |
6.33% |
| 7. |
Net Communities and Chat |
5.90% |
| 8. |
News and Media |
5.32% |
| 9. |
Shopping and Classifieds |
4.25% |
| 10. |
Business and Finance |
3.06% |
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| 1. |
Entertainment |
32.10% |
| 2. |
Computers and Internet |
31.09% |
| 3. |
Movies |
15.49% |
| 4. |
Search Engines |
10.35% |
| 5. |
Shopping and Classifieds |
7.86% |
| 6. |
News and Media |
7.13% |
| 7. |
Net Communities and Chat |
6.25% |
| 8. |
Business and Finance |
5.69% |
| 9. |
Software |
4.05% |
| 10. |
Lifestyle |
4.04% |
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