Despite yesterday’s attacks and the bombing outrages that hit central London on July 7th, UK air travellers have hardly paused in seeking online deals for flights into London airports according to internal log file data at Cheapflights. They and other travellers have continued to demonstrate incredible resilience in the face of terrorism. As well as searching for flights, they have also continued to look for London accommodation. This is borne out by the small drop in the percentage of visits to the London pages of Cheapflights' relevant sites, Cheapflights.co.uk and Cheapaccommodation.com.
As a percentage of Cheapflights.co.uk' s entire traffic, flights enquiries dropped from 4.76% of all visits in the week before the initial bombings to 3.92% in the week following the atrocity.
For Cheapaccommodation.com, which reaches a global audience, the fall was also modest with 2.14% of all visits in the week before versus 1.64% in the week after.
David Soskin, CEO of Cheapflights Ltd said: "Our traffic clearly demonstrates that both UK and global travellers are very stoic in the face of the threat of terrorism. As they did after 9/11, our users have shown that they will not be deterred. If past patterns are repeated, I would expect to see the percentage which London represents climb as the City returns to normality”.
Notes to Editors:
Cheapflights
Founded in 1996 and profitable since launch, Cheapflights.co.uk pioneered the travel price comparison model in the UK
Cheapflights do not sell any travel products Each day, on its four sister sites, Cheapflights displays over one million constantly updated prices on flights, holidays, short breaks and accommodation, supplied from over 900 travel partners worldwide. These can be accessed online or by telephone direct with the advertiser. This makes Cheapflights the most comprehensive online directory of travel deals available and a natural starting point for finding travel, holidays or accommodation.
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, including the US, support this, reaching 4,000,000 unique users in January 2005 (source: ABCe and Company Logfiles).
The company estimates that it will generate travel product sales of over £800 million for its more than 700 UK advertising partners in 2005. 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 , Llama Travel and Iglu.com.
