This January travel site Cheapholidaydeals.co.uk celebrates its first birthday. The only major travel site to launch in 2004, Cheapholidaydeals has already built a strong position for itself working with over 230 travel partners.
The site, which complements the market-leading Cheapflights.co.uk, boasts in excess of 350,000 holiday deals at any one time to destinations across the globe. Designed to suit all holiday types and budgets, Cheapholidaydeals helps consumers find everything from package holidays and short breaks to cruises, skiing or even specialist trips including safaris, mountain biking and treks.
Unlike online travel agents, Cheapholidaydeals.co.uk does not sell any product – similar to Cheapflights.co.uk, it is designed to give consumers access to the best travel deals, whether they’re from high street travel agents, tour operators or individual specialist operators. Traffic to the site continues to grow; by November 2004 year-on-year unique user numbers had grown by 92% compared to a growth average of 13% for all travel websites*.
Cheapholidaydeals reached position 19 th** in the Hitwise ranking out of 1,000+ travel sites monitored. Cheapholidaydeals has quickly established itself as a serious contender in the competitive online travel market. Consumers can compare product from high street brands such as TUI and First Choice as well as specialist companies like DFDS mini cruises, Cosmos Tourama and small niche operators like Llama Travel and Exodus Travels.
Liz Faherty of Cheapflights Ltd said: “We’ve had a fantastic first year and growth has exceeded our expectations. With more and more consumers wanting to take control over their holiday choices, Cheapholidaydeals allows them to choose from an enormous variety of holidays available from a diverse range of travel companies, presented in an impartial and efficient way.
Cheapholidaydeals also allows smaller specialist travel companies, who do not necessarily have the time or the resources to maintain their presence on the web, to target a wider audience.”
* Nielsen//NetRatings Unique users September – November 2004
** Hitwise Travel Agency Category, 1st September 2004
Notes to Editors:
Founded in 1996 and profitable since launch, Cheapflights.co.uk pioneered the travel price comparison model in the UK
Each day Cheapflights displays over one million fares on flights, holidays, short breaks and accommodation, from over 700 travel partners. This makes Cheapflights the most comprehensive directory of travel deals available and a natural starting point for travel.
Leading online measurement company Hitwise describes Cheapflights.co.uk as ‘the UK’s favourite travel price comparison site’; and the Company's unique user numbers support this, reaching over 2,000,000 unique users in August 2004 (source: WebTrends).
The company estimates that it will generate travel product sales of over £500 million for its more than 700 UK partners this year. And these advertisers read like a Who’s Who of the travel world - ranging from British Airways, Thomson and Lastminute.com to specialist operators like Barwell Travel, Journey Latin America and Serenity Holidays.
Additionally, Cheapflights is one of the few British Internet companies to successfully establish an operation in the USA with Cheapflights.com. Launched in May 2003, it is already in the top 25 US travel sites (source: Hitwise USA, Travel Agents Category) and heading for similar popularity.
The company also operates the highly successful global accommodation website Cheapaccommodation.com and launched a similar site for the package holiday market - Cheapholidaydeals.co.uk - in January 2004. Cheapholidaydeals, the only major UK internet travel site to launch in 2004, won the WebUser Gold Award and was runner-up in the travel category for the New Media Age effectiveness awards.
In 2004 Cheapflights Ltd won The National Business Award, South East Region, for the "best growth strategy" category.
