A branding survey of meta search and listing websites has placed Travelsupermarket as the clear market leader in the UK. The Cheshire-based company, part of the Moneysupermarket empire, doubled its brand awareness from 30% in July 2006 to 63% in July 2007 in a YouGov poll with 2,000 consumers. The only other site to see…
Marketing push paying off for TravelSupermarket
A branding survey of meta search and listing websites has placed Travelsupermarket as the clear market leader in the UK.
The Cheshire-based company, part of the Moneysupermarket empire, doubled its brand awareness from 30% in July 2006 to 63% in July 2007 in a YouGov poll with 2,000 consumers.
The only other site to see a significant increase is Henoo.com, growing from 1% to 8% during the same period.
The other sites included in the survey – carried out on four occasions: July 2007, November 2006, March 2007 and July 2007 – were TravelJungle, Kayak, Sidestep, Skyscanner and Travelzoo.
The massive growth in recognition among consumers for the TravelSupermarket brand will come as a huge relief to bosses following the site’s huge investment in offline advertising in the past 12 months.
The company has spent £11 million in a high profile TV and billboard advertising campaign over the past year and has committed to continue the strategy.
Figures obtained by Travolution reveal little or no increase for the two new US players on the UK meta search market during the 12-month period.
In July 2007 Kayak scored an awareness rating of 4% (up from 1% in July 2006) while Sidestep remained static at 1%.
Travelzoo was found to have lost three percentage points – down to 19% – over the reporting period.
Chris Nixon, managing director of Travelsupermarket.com, said: “We increased our marketing spend significantly for 2007 and are delighted with the results of the survey.
“We have seen a fantastic level of growth in 2007 so far attracting a record number of hits in July, with unique visitor numbers peaking at 180,000 on our busiest day.”
However, reacting to the figures, European managing director Chris Loughlin said the results did not reflect the massive growth in terms of website traffic and the number of subscribers to its weekly Top 20 deals electronic bulletin.
In early-July 2007, Travelzoo had 767,000 subscribers to its weekly bulletin in the UK, up from 520,000 in July 2006. The company also entered the Hitwise top 15 online travel agencies for the first time in May 2007.
