Cheapflights Ltd., the leading UK and North American internet media travel company, which pioneered online flight price search and comparison in 1996, has analysed the number of clicks that were made searching for flight deals to London in July 2006 and 2007 on its US site www.cheapflights.com. While Cheapflights.com's July 2007 traffic has grown strongly over July 2006, both overall and for London, the city's lower destination ranking demonstrates the significant effect the dollar's weakness has had on US air travel to the UK.
In July 2006 London was ranked the 7th most popular destination for which deals were sought on Cheapflights’ US site. In July 2007, that ranking has dropped sharply out of the top ten destinations to 15th. This follows the US dollar's significant decline against the Pound year on year. According to the US Federal Reserve's monthly average exchange rate for July 2006 the Dollar stood at 1.8433: In July 2007, the average exchange rate was 2.0355 which has clearly deterred potential US tourists from coming to the UK.
Normally the top main destinations sought by Cheapflights' US users are seasonally stable with little variation. Predictably these are the leisure destinations of Las Vegas (1), Orlando (2) and Atlanta (6) and the business destinations of New York (3), Chicago (4), and Los Angeles (6). London's drop from its normal 7th position to 15th is very unusual and likely linked to the increased expense of travel driven by rising exchange rates.
| Rank | Destination July 2006 | Rank | Destination July 2007 |
| 1 | Las Vegas | 1 | Las Vegas |
| 2 | Orlando | 2 | Orlando |
| 3 | New York | 3 | New York |
| 4 | Chicago | 4 | Chicago |
| 5 | Atlanta | 5 | Los Angeles |
| 6 | Los Angeles | 6 | Atlanta |
| 7 | LONDON | 7 | Seattle |
| | | 15 | LONDON |
Commenting, Chris Cuddy, Cheapflights' Group Managing Director said: "Cheapflights' record traffic last year reflects the fact that travellers are able to find and compare more flights deals from more flights providers than anywhere else on the web. When our users search for cheap flight deals, tourist destinations are a major component as our table shows. London is a perennial favourite destination for US citizens, however the unfavourable exchange rate has made the UK an expensive choice as the current comparative rankings clearly show!"
Francesca Ecsery, General Manager, Cheapflights.co.uk added: "New York is consistently the number one destination searched for on our UK site Cheapflights.co.uk. With the cheap dollar, it is therefore not surprising that the dollar's weakness has caused a 38% surge in traffic searching for deals to America's first city compared to July 2006 a year ago. Similarly the Pound's relative strength against the Euro has seen interest by price sensitive Brits for flights to Alicante, Malaga and Tenerife up from a year ago by between 50 and 60%."
Notes to Editors - Cheapflights Ltd.
www.cheapflights.co.uk: Founded in 1996 and profitable since launch, Cheapflights is the UK’s leading UK flight price comparison website and pioneered the travel price comparison model on the Internet. It also introduced the pay-per-click business model to the UK in 2000.
Cheapflights is one of the few British internet companies successfully to establish an operation in the USA (www.cheapflights.com). Launched in May 2003, and currently with 2.6 million unique users a month, Cheapflights.com is already in the top 13 US travel sites (Hitwise US).
In April 2007, Cheapflights launched in Canada (www.cheapflights.ca).
Cheapflights does not sell any flight deals or travel products. Each day, it sorts millions of flight prices from hundreds of travel partners worldwide. It then publishes a filtered current list of the best deals. These deals can be accessed online or by telephone direct with the advertiser from links or information on our site. This makes Cheapflights one of the most comprehensive independent online publishers of flight deals available. It also has well established opt-in subscription weekly newsletters on both sides of the Atlantic with more than 4 million subscribers. The Company has launched UK and USA "Flight News" blog sites, news.cheapflights.co.uk; and news.cheapflights.com. These have become major interactive communities to inform and assist travel consumers on both sides of the Atlantic.
Hitwise's statistics show Cheapflights as being in the UK's top 10 vertical search and price comparison sites in their Travel - Agencies sector for the past 19 quarters. Cheapflights now accounts for just under 1% of all UK PPC advertising and 3.2% of all UK online travel display adverts according to 2006 IAB figures. The Company's unique user numbers reached almost 6 million globally in January 2007.
Cheapflights estimates that it generated travel product sales of over US$1.8 billion for its advertising partners in 2006. These advertisers read like a Who’s Who of the travel world - ranging from British Airways, Thomson, Expedia, Travelocity, TUI and Thomas Cook. Cheapflights' newsletter advertisers include specialists like the Netherlands Travel Board, Pure Espana, SAS and Warner Breaks and specialist travel agencies such as Corsican Places, Anatolian Sky Holidays and Nita International.
In January 2007 Cheapflights invested in the Icelandic global flights planner, dohop ltd (www.dohop.com) and is represented on the dohop.com Board. The dohop.com free website enables travellers to research available flight routes and scheduled departures and arrivals worldwide and operates as a separate business to Cheapflights. It facilitates journey planning and is particularly helpful for finding unusual flight connections.
Cheapflights' status as an independent online travel price search and comparison and travel news site makes it a natural starting point for finding travel deals and up-to-date travel industry information from a neutral source on both sides of the Atlantic.
