Christmas and New Year advertising campaigns kicking in for Thomson and Thomas Cook as their respective websites leave the likes of Expedia and Lastminute.com trailing behind.
Market leader Thomson saw its share of the agency category in January jump by over 1% on the previous month, with December’s third place brad Thomas Cook moving up a spot following a 1.5% increase of its own.
The boost saw Expedia and Lastminute.com drop to second and fourth spot with their respective declines of 0.25% and 0.75%.
Most popular travel websites in the UK for January 2013:
Agencies
Rank Website Domain Percentage of Visits Previous Position
1 Thomson www.thomson.co.uk 7.80% 1
2 Thomas Cook www.thomascook.com 6.50% 4
3 Expedia.co.uk www.expedia.co.uk 5.51% 2
4 Lastminute.com www.lastminute.com 4.28% 3
5 TravelRepublic.co.uk www.travelrepublic.co.uk 4.06% 6
6 skyscanner www.skyscanner.net 3.59% 5
7 travelsupermarket.com www.travelsupermarket.com 2.69% 9
8 On the Beach www.onthebeach.co.uk 2.60% -
9 First Choice www.firstchoice.co.uk 2.42% -
10 Travelzoo UK www.travelzoo.com/uk 2.36% 7
Destinations and Accommodation
Rank Website Domain Percentage of Visits Previous Position
1 TripAdvisor UK www.tripadvisor.co.uk 15.32% 1
2 Booking.com www.booking.com 7.79% 2
3 TripAdvisor www.tripadvisor.com 2.82% 4
4 LateRooms.com www.laterooms.com 2.66% 3
5 Travelodge UK www.travelodge.co.uk 1.83% 7
6 Premier Inn www.premierinn.com 1.69% 8
7 Hotels.com www.hotels.com 1.68% 10
8 Groupon Travel Deals getaways.groupon.co.uk 1.49% 6
9 Owners Direct www.ownersdirect.co.uk 1.46% -
10 Holiday Lettings www.holidaylettings.co.uk 1.37% -
Airlines
Rank Website Domain Percentage of Visits Previous Position
1 easyJet.com www.easyjet.com 19.23% 2
2 British Airways www.britishairways.com 14.74% 1
3 Ryanair www.ryanair.com 13.14% 3
4 Jet2.com www.jet2.com 6.76% 7
5 Monarch.co.uk www.monarch.co.uk 5.76% 6
6 Virgin atlantic www.virgin-atlantic.com 5.11% 4
7 Flybe www.flybe.com 4.79% 5
8 Thomson Airways flights.thomson.co.uk 2.95% 9
9 Emirates www.emirates.com 2.53% 8
10 flythomascook.com www.flythomascook.com 1.94% -
Travel search terms
Rank Search Term Percentage of Clicks Percentage Paid Percentage Organic Previous Position
1 google maps 0.93% 6.65% 93.35% 1
2 easyjet 0.86% 8.72% 91.28% 3
3 thomas cook 0.79% 43.72% 56.28% 7
4 national rail 0.67% 0.55% 99.45% 2
5 thomson 0.55% 1.92% 98.08% -
6 ryanair 0.54% 14.04% 85.96% 8
7 tfl 0.48% 0.12% 99.88% 5
8 train times 0.42% 17.64% 82.36% 4
9 aa route planner 0.38% 0.45% 99.55% 6
10 premier inn 0.37% 44.70% 55.30% -
NB: Data courtesy of Experian Hitwise
NB2: London image via Shutterstock.
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Neither Travelzoo nor Skyscanner are agencies, so why are they labelled as such?
@matt – it’s the terminology Hitwise uses, but essentially means intermediaries.
Yet another reason why “big data” companies such as Hitwise stink when it comes to small data.
@matt – huh?
What good is a data company that can’t properly label data?
@matt – a good point, but you’re the first to raise it with us, so i’m pretty confident that most other readers understand.
You understand because you’re experts who are very good at what you do, but you can’t control who reads your content. I’m a regular Tnooz reader, but I found the link to this story on an external website. That website’s readers might not be so savvy and may not understand the difference, or they may be smart-ass know-it-alls (like me) who point to this and say that you don’t know what you’re talking about. That means either selectively removing data you know to be inaccurate when preparing reports like this, or including an editorial note that while sites such as Travelzoo and Skyscanner are not actual agencies, the company compiling the data (Hitwise) treats them as such.
@matt – i’m more than happy to pass the feedback along, cheers.