British Airways sees bookings jump 10% on Christmas Day

British Airways has revealed it saw a 10% jump in the number of bookings taken online over the previous year on Christmas Day. The increase was also expected at Travelsupermarket, with a rise of 10% in user numbers predicted for the period 26 to 31 December as consumers start to search for holidays in 2009. The…

British Airways has revealed it saw a 10% jump in the number of bookings taken online over the previous year on Christmas Day.

The increase was also expected at Travelsupermarket, with a rise of 10% in user numbers predicted for the period 26 to 31 December as consumers start to search for holidays in 2009.

The figures follow news that £100 million was expected to be spent via the web on Christmas Day, according to IMRG-Hitwise in a pre-Christmas announcement.

Travelsupermarket managing director Graham Donoghue told Travolution the expected increase would be partly as a result of extra TV, out-of-home and search advertising activity.

Hitwise said this week that Boxing Day was the busiest single day in 2008 for online retailers but traffic was actually down by 4.9% on the same day in 2007.

The top ten internet searches containing the word sale for the week ending 27 December included “next sale”, “debenhams sale” and “currys sale”.

The fastest growing retail sub-sectors on Boxing Day 2008 on the previous year were Apparel and Accessories (up 22%), Grocery and Alcohol (up 18.5%) and Department Stores (up 0.7%).