October 27, 2008: Cheapflights Ltd, the pioneer and international leader in independent flights price comparison, is expanding its reach and market position further with the launch of a new site in Germany - www.cheapflug.de. The German site is based on Cheapflights' new common technology platform which successfully powers Cheapflights' successful websites in the UK and US. This approach will enable Cheapflug.de to introduce new features rapidly beyond the initial “light” site launched earlier this month. Cheapflug.de is Cheapflights' first non-English language site and will initially be managed from London which is the Company's technical hub for European operations.
Cheapflights selected Germany as its first continental European launch due to Germany's leading position in outbound tourism from Europe, its strong business economy, plus the positive encouragement from leading German flight providers. The Cheapflug.de site carries flight deals departing from Germany and from airports in Austria as well as those airports close to Germany's borders with neighbouring countries.
Germany is clearly a natural market for Cheapflights to expand into:
o Its five main airports carried 131 million passengers in 2007 (Source: Airports International Council).
o In outbound tourism it was No. 1 in Europe in 2007 with 75.9 million trips (Source: European Travel Commission Report 2007-2008 : p. 28).
o Germany also enjoys both high internet penetration - more than 50 million users, nearly 64 per cent of the population (Source: www.internetworldstats.com – June,2008 ) and a proliferation of broadband access - some 24 per cent of the population at the end of 2007.
o Online, Germany remained the second largest travel market in Europe in 2007, accounting for 19 per cent of the total European online travel market, according to the updated January 2008 study “Trends in European Internet Distribution – of Travel and Tourism Services” by Carl H. Marcussen Centre for Regional and Tourism Research.
While the online flights market in Germany is highly developed, Cheapflights' flights search and comparison model is a recent arrival on the German internet. Cheapflights believes its unique model of a neutral travel site displaying deals from a broad selection of flight deal providers will provide clear benefits to both users and the travel industry. Cheapflights is not a meta-search site but rather has contractual agreements with all its industry advertisers, from major flight providers down to the "long-tail" of specialist agencies, many of which have no web presence of their own.
The Cheapflights flights price search and comparison model and its opt-in subscriber newsletters have already proved a success with both consumers and with travel operators on both sides of the Atlantic. Cheapflights websites hosted circa six million unique users per month last year which drove an estimated US$4 billion flights sales to Cheapflights' advertising "partners" globally.
Cheapflights Head of International Mo Bulbrook said today: "The Germans and Brits are surprisingly alike: They love beaches and cheap flight deals! Despite the undoubted charms of both countries, the indifferent weather in both means everyone legs it abroad each year. Furthermore, Germans travel abroad more often than any other European nationality closely followed by Brits! Cheapflug.de will help our users in Germany find not only great deals but will also provide a terrific resource for researching travel information and finding inspirational holiday destinations."
Cheapflights' CEO, Chris Cuddy commented: "Germany is a significant step forward in Cheapflights' international expansion and is part of Cheapflights’ wider strategy to go global within the next five years. Our newly redesigned technology platform enables Cheapflights to embark on this launch with minimal additional investment. We are most encouraged to see the extremely positive initial response from German users and our existing travel partners who embrace our international ambitions to develop multi-national business relationships."
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Contacts:
Cheapflights Ltd:
John Barrington-Carver; Corporate PR
Tel: +44 (0) 207 467 3535
Mobile +44 (0) 7831 655 630
e-mail: corporate-pr@cheapflights.com
Notes to Editors
CheapflightsLtd.: www.cheapflights.co.uk was launched in 1996. It pioneered the concept of online flight price search and comparison and has been consistently profitable since launch. It was the first UK dotcom to introduce pay-per-click in 2000, which helped to transform online advertising. Cheapflights does not sell tickets but publishes flight deals from airlines, budget airlines, online travel agents and the long tail of other specialist flight deal providers. It launched its US site www.cheapflights.com in May 2003, which has rapidly grown and which now provides half of Cheapflights' millions of monthly visits by consumers. Its Canadian site www.cheapflights.ca which was "beta" launched in April 2007 is already enjoying traffic of over 200,000 monthly visits. Cheapflights UK and North American sites each provide consumers with rapid, easy to use comparisons of about one million flight deals daily from the broadest online selection of travel operators. The sites are valued by travel industry advertisers as a neutral, high-traffic source of quality high-conversion consumer leads. Cheapflights' status as an independent online travel price search and comparison and travel news site, together with its free opt-in subscriber newsletters makes it a natural starting point for finding travel deals and up-to-date travel industry information on both sides of the Atlantic.
