Hitwise releases its UK Quarterly Travel Research Note

The travel industry has enjoyed explosive growth over the past few years and is one of the top e-commerce industries. A handful of players have dominated the industry over the past year, but things appear to be set to change as smaller players snap up market share.

Hitwise has just released the first edition of its UK Quarterly Travel Research Note which provides insights into the trends affecting the sector, the practices of the leading players, and analysis of Sabre's proposed acquisition of Lastminute.com.

Click here to request a copy.

Key Findings of the report are:

• Websites for commercial airlines have enjoyed explosive growth, with 24% increase in market share of visits in April 2005, compared with April 2004.

• easyJet, RyanAir.com, and British Airways have been the top three airlines for the past twelve months based on market share of visits. Over that same period, smaller players have enjoyed significant growth in share of visits, narrowing the gap to the leaders.

• Travel Agencies experience the highest level of comparison shopping among the leading e-commerce sectors, with one quarter of visits to travel agency websites coming from another site in the same category.

• Travel websites receive more visits from search engines than average for other sites on the internet, but receive fewer visits from email services.

• Travel websites attract a wealthy demographic, with wealthy families, empty nesters and young urban professionals most likely to visit travel websites. These groups are also most likely to book three or more holidays a year, based on an offline survey by Experian.

• Expedia.co.uk maintained its hold on the #1 spot among online travel agencies in April in terms of market share of visits. The site also enjoys an above average session time and share of pages viewed. These factors combined indicate strong audience engagement among Expedia.co.uk's many visitors.

• There is a strong link between the share of visits to travel agency websites and the number of search terms sending visits to the sites.

To find out how you can get the most out of your search marketing campaign, click here to receive a copy of the Hitwise Search Intelligence Guide.

Travel Agencies

Whilst Travelocity is the term which sends the largest volume of visits to Travel Agencies in the US, this is not the case in the UK. In contrast, it is the 23rd most popular search term sending visits to Travel Agencies in the UK.

For volume of searches, "lastminute" is a much stronger brand in the UK but "expedia" has a significant lead on this measure and is the 2nd most popular search term.

Top search terms sending traffic to Travel Agency sites in the UK, for the 4-week period ending 7/5/2005:

Search is a critical component of the marketing mix of insurance websites, and is responsible for more than one in three visits.

Hitwise Search Intelligence data reveals that car insurance is the most searched for type of insurance on the Internet, followed by travel insurance, home insurance, and pet insurance. Market share of visits to insurance sites closely follow that of automotive sites, with peaks and troughs occurring together.

Visitors to insurance websites tend to move among several different sites as they compare quotes and offers from the various providers. Despite the perceived cut-throat level of competitiveness in the industry, insurance websites don't experience a higher level of comparison shopping when compared with other leading e-commerce industries, such as retail, travel, employment, and banking.

Click here to request a copy of the UK Online Insurance Report.

News In Brief

UK Election top news event in 2005

The 2005 election caused the largest spike in visits to news and media websites in the UK since the Boxing Day tsunami, making it the biggest news event to date in 2005. BBC News and Guardian Unlimited Politics were the favoured online destinations for election results, and both enjoyed a significant increase in visits on 6th May.

However both sites attracted UK Internet users seeking Election Day results in very different ways. BBC News was a destination for those seeking election results, whereas the Guardian was reached via Google News and search. On 6 May, Politics.guardian.co.uk saw a six-fold increase in visits from Google UK News, and was well optimised to receive visits from a variety of election-related search phrases, including names of several local candidates.


GI Diet still a hit with carb-conscious consumers

The popularity of the GI Diet took off earlier this year, when the term 'gi diet' overtook 'atkins diet' to become the most searched-for diet in the UK. At its peak in early March, searches for 'gi diet' were outstripping those for 'atkins diet' by more than two to one. The GI Diet was boosted yet again last week by a week-long GI spotlight in the Daily Telegraph's Health section, and was one of the top 10 online destinations for UK Internet users searching for 'gi diet'.

'Cabbage soup diet', 'south beach diet' and the celebrity endorsed 'detox diet' also featured prominently within the top 20 most searched-for diet terms for the week ending May 7.


Traffic soars for Star Wars 'Revenge of the Sith'

The highly-anticipated release of the sixth and final Star Wars film has seen the British public rushing online for news of the film ahead of its UK release on May 19.

According to the latest Hitwise data, the official Star Wars website (www.starwars.com) is currently the second most popular site in the Hitwise Entertainment - Movies category, following a four-fold increase in traffic in as many weeks.

According to Hitwise Search Intelligence data, 'star wars' is the third most popular search term resulting in traffic to sites in the Entertainment - Movies category (behind 'imdb' and 'odeon' at #1 and #2 respectively). Other variations on terms for the film include 'starwars', 'revenge of the sith' and 'star wars episode 3' which also feature in the top 30 Movies search terms.

Fast Mover: Oxfam Unwrapped

www.oxfamunwrapped.com


Position for week ending April 16: 128
Position for week ending May 14: 32
Positions jumped: 96

One of the fastest-moving websites on Hitwise this month has been Oxfam Unwrapped - the charitable gift site where users can purchase school dinners, educational equipment, farm animals, or even a camel - as gifts for impoverished communities around the world.

The site has just unveiled its wedding registry service, enabling couples to register a list of charitable gifts for their wedding guests on the Oxfam site. Along with the recent release of its spring/summer catalogue, the publicity for the registry has boosted Oxfam Unwrapped into the top 40 online Charities sites.

For the week ending April 16, www.oxfamunwrapped.com was ranked at 128 in the Hitwise Community - Humanitarian category, but leapt to 32 by the week ending May 14. Hitwise daily data further reveals that the site peaked at 23 in the Humanitarian sector on Thursday May 12.

Category Spotlight: Category Spotlight: 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. The data below is based on All sites » Weekly rankings for the week ending 14/05/2005 » Ranks by 'Visits'.

Local Competitiveness Index 35.8% of traffic to this category was directed at domestic sites.

Traffic Distribution The chart above illustrates the distribution of this category's traffic for the week among sites in various rank ranges.

Top 10 Upstream Categories 1. Computers and Internet 53.3% 2. Computers and Internet - Search Engines and Directories 38.6% 3. Entertainment 23.2% 4. Entertainment - Movies 11.3% 5. Shopping and Classifieds 8.1% 6. News and Media 4.7% 7. Lifestyle 4.2% 8. Computers and Internet - Net Communities and Chat 3.4% 9. Computers and Internet - Email Services 3.1% 10. Computers and Internet - Graphics and Clip Art 2.9%

Top 10 Downstream Categories 1. Entertainment 34.4% 2. Computers and Internet 29.1% 3. Entertainment - Movies 17.6% 4. Shopping and Classifieds 14.5% 5. Computers and Internet - Search Engines and Directories 11.2% 6. News and Media 5.7% 7. Computers and Internet - Software 4.9% 8. Entertainment - Television 4.1% 9. Computers and Internet - Net Communities and Chat 4.0% 10. Shopping and Classifieds - Video and Games 3.6%

Media queries at Hitwise

If you are interested in using Hitwise content and statistics in publications and presentations, we encourage you to do so. Please source the content as "Hitwise United Kingdom - www.hitwise.co.uk".

Additionally - if you require assistance with statistics or content, please feel free to contact Jannie Cahill at jannie.cahill@hitwise.com.

About this Newsletter

This monthly email Newsletter is designed to provide Hitwise subscribers with analysis of new developments, industry trends and competitive activity. The powerful real-time web intelligence capabilities of Hitwise and a continual flow of additional research findings make this an indispensable business resource.

You have received the Hitwise newsletter because you subscribed to our services, or a friend sent it to you. To change your details or unsubscribe from the Hitwise newsletter please click here.

Hitwise is strongly committed to your privacy rights and does not sell or give its list to third parties. To view the Hitwise Privacy Policy please click here.

Brought to you by the team at Hitwise United Kingdom - www.hitwise.co.uk.

Copyright Hitwise Pty Ltd, May 2005