Kayak sets bold traffic and revenue claims for 2009

Travel meta search site Kayak aims to double in size both in visitor numbers and revenue by the end of the year. The site claims it is already recording strong traffic figures with and that it saw record revenue and traffic in January. According to the company it will hit one billion searches by the…

Travel meta search site Kayak aims to double in size both in visitor numbers and revenue by the end of the year.

The site claims it is already recording strong traffic figures with and that it saw record revenue and traffic in January.

According to the company it will hit one billion searches by the end of the first quarter while visits to its UK site have more than doubled year-on-year. Traffic to all European sites has tripled during the same period, it said this week.

Kayak Europe and Asia managing director Faisal Galaria said large-scale partnerships in the pipeline, scheduled to go live in Q2, would be a major contributor to the comparison site’s growth as well as an increase in the marketing budget.

“We have ramped up our presence in terms of marketing and affiliate relationships. We have just started with Lonely Planet and it has been another good month for Orange so the combination means we are getting new users to the site and they are coming back as repeat visitors.”

The Lonely Planet white label was previouly operated by Global Travel Market.

He added that Kayak was now in a position to have discussions with ‘significant partners of the AOL ilk’.

“Two or three of those this year will put us in a very different ballpark” he said.

Galaria attributed the current success to marketing plans put in place six months ago. He said that the company had steadily been increasing its marketing budget in recent months.

“The strategy of spending ahead of the possible recession was the right thing to do. People are starting to talk about the brand.”

He added that there are no signs of declines in visitor numbers and that the service is about to experience its biggest month ever across its international sites.

Kayak has also just signed a new sponsored link advertising deal with Google.