Cheapflights Ltd. ("Cheapflights" or "the Company"), a leading UK and North American internet media travel company providing flight price search and comparison announces the beta relaunch of its UK site www.cheapflights.co.uk.
The UK relaunch in Beta follows the successful full relaunch of its US site www.cheapflights.com in February this year following rigorous stress testing there. Based on the same platform as the US site, the Company will initially open the new site to a small percentage of Cheapflights.co.uk's viewers. It expects to roll out to a full UK launch in a relatively short time following feed-back from its advertisers and users.
The Beta launch marks an important stage in Cheapflights’ 12 year history. Since 1996, the Company has always striven to innovate and provide a cutting edge service both to its users and to its travel advertising partners. Cheapflights believe that the very rapid response speed and the major increase in travel data available on the new site will provide viewers with a great user experience starting on the Homepage.
The new site provides new deal filters, easier site navigation, and dozens of other new features that enable unprecedented access to flight deals for those with flexible travel plans and also for those requiring date specific deals. With a significantly increased library of travel-related proprietary guides plus links to external travel information, consumers will be able to research and plan their travel much faster and more easily.
For advertisers, the new site provides new and more profitable ways to target consumers. This includes the opportunity to cross-sell hand-picked deals such as car hire, accommodation, airport parking etc when users pull up prices for a chosen destination. Further information is available in the Appendix below.
Cheapflights' UK General Manager, Francesca Ecsery comments: "We are fortunate to have had the benefit of our US site's relaunch in helping us to prepare for the UK site's roll-out. We anticipate that our advertisers and users will embrace the full UK launch within a relatively short period. The revamped site will deliver new functionality, rapid ease of access to our advertisers' deals and tremendous additional proprietary content from a huge range of suppliers and online information sources to assist with travel planning. We believe users will find our site to be an improved and incredible tool to research, find and book their travel requirements."
Cheapflights' CEO, Chris Cuddy added: "The relaunch of the UK and US sites is the fruit of significant redesign work and heavy investment in back-end technology. This has not only enabled the relaunch of Cheapflights' existing sites but also provides a common technology platform from which to build additional sites in Europe and further afield. Cheapflights is already established in North America and we expect to launch a European site later this year as part of our strategy to extend our successful flights price search and comparison model internationally."
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Appendix to Cheapflights.co.uk Relaunch Release June 20, 2008
What does the New Site Do that the Old One Did Not?
New site has an enhanced location based search function giving consumers better ways to find the best deals for their chosen type of destination.
- Homepage gives immediate access to flight deals for over 30 popular destinations and to the top ten travel destinations on our travel destination guides library.
- For consumers "browsing" for alternative destinations, the new site has a geographical tab enabling consumers to quickly find deals and guides in Europe, North & South America, Asia, Africa and Oceania.
- The site remembers the last five destinations searched for and enables consumers to return to a particular destination page deals and its other destination tabs without having to re-enter information.
- The destination flight deals page now also has filters for price, and departure/destination airports and as well as flexible date flight deals a date specific search box for the destination.
- Handpicked deals for other last minute travel and deals such as airport parking, hotels, travel insurance and lounges etc. are now easier to find on the homepage.
- Home page allows search choice for specific travel dates as well as deals for those with flexibility.
Much Expanded Data Capacity and Library Content with Easy to find links to 'Insider' destination information as well as airline and airport guides and flight information guides.
- There are now more than 450 destination information/guides written in-house to assist consumers in their decision making about where to go.
- In addition there are airport guides and links to Lonely Planet, Maps, Weather, best time to visit, Events and currency etc associated with destinations.
- New section on airline guides, and airlines' rules on baggage policy and charges they apply for baggage; check-in and in-flight services.
What does this do for Advertisers
Advertisers will benefit from higher quality leads generated by the site
- Consumers will have been able to find much more information about a destination and be better informed about it, thus helping to commit them to a particular resort.
- The new site provides many additional placements, including home page and destination guides, from where advertisers can promote their deals.
- Best flight deals from advertisers for a particular destination now displayed on Destination Guide pages making it easier for consumers to find a deal when they have found a resort/destination they like.
- The filters on the flight deal pages ensure that users have done more research on Cheapflights, and therefore more qualified when they follow leads to an advertiser.
- Our handpicked deals can now be placed on flight deal pages, enabling users to access advertisers' deals for accommodation, holiday and car hire products.
The new technology behind the site now provides an absolutely common technology platform for all Cheapflights' sites and will greatly facilitate international expansion with its improvement in scalability.
