Posts Tagged ‘ Travel ’
Summer travel plans are well underway for most and it’s particularly a very popular time for family travel. Catering to families is a smart strategy for many in the travel industry, and there’s growing evidence that even in these tough economic times the family vacation has become more important than ever—with families working hard to [...][ READ MORE ]
AirTran’s shareholders approved Southwest Airlines’ proposed acquisition on Wednesday, which was originally announced last year in September. The buyout will expand Southwest’s lead in market share of visits online among airlines, where their website already consistently ranks first in the US. The deal will further entrench Southwest’s position in southern states and also expand its [...][ READ MORE ]
Google Thursday announced an agreement to acquire ITA Software, a flight information software company. We at Hitwise have been waiting for such an announcement for some time. In 2006 when Google Finance was launched, we looked at the top downstream industries from Google and noticed an obvious gap: Travel. Then again in 2008, when Google [...][ READ MORE ]
Heading into the season for summer vacations, visits to a PhoCusWright Canada Travel custom category comprised of 720 websites are up 6% for the week ending June 26, 2010 as compared to the previous week. The sub-categories within Travel that experienced the highest week-over-week upticks were Car Rentals (+15%), Cruises (+8) and Reviews and Planning [...][ READ MORE ]
United and Continental Airlines announced their plans to merge today and the combination of the two airlines will create the world’s largest carrier in terms of passenger traffic. Together United and Continental will surpass Delta with 21% of seats in the U.S. market after the acquisition of Northwest in 2008. Among US Internet visitors, the [...][ READ MORE ]
Flash sales online have continued to grow in popularity, particularly in the apparel and home categories as new entrants emerge to compete with Gilt Groupe, RueLaLa, HauteLook and others. Visits to a custom category of 17 websites offering Online Flash Sales increased 235% year-over-year for the week ending April 24, 2010. Last year, the Gilt [...][ READ MORE ]
Students across Canada recently enjoyed a week off for March Break and Hitwise data indicates many left plans to the last minute. Last week, searches that included the words “march break” increased 4 fold compared with four weeks ago. While the exact week off varies by province, last week, Ontario students enjoyed their break, and [...][ READ MORE ]
With no end in sight to winter and the charm of the ever-mounting snow banks wearing off, Canadians are turning to the web to book winter escapes. Visits to Travel websites have seen a sharp increase over the past two weeks. Canadian Internet visits were up 34% to Travel websites in the two weeks to [...][ READ MORE ]
Last week at the PhocusWright conference in Orlando, Florida, I had the pleasure of presenting with Rick Seaney, the CEO of FareCompare. One topic that we discussed is the impact of changing airfares and capacity upon the upcoming Thanksgiving travel season. There has been significant coverage in the media about many travelers not flying during [...][ READ MORE ]
Canada is home to one national airline (Air Canada), a major regional carrier (Westjet), a few low cost carriers and international competition on international routes. One might expect Canadians to head directly to AirCanada.com to make bookings, however, Hitwise data reveal that Canadians continue to compare deals across carriers, in particular using online travel agencies. [...][ READ MORE ]
