August 29 2006

Travel terror - food for thought for retailers

Hitwise have released the statistics for key travel terms following the terror alerts which blighted the UK's travel arrangements in August.

A key learning point is that those whose booking systems and businesses are online get the majority of the traffic. A blinding flash of the obvious, of course, but it's a timely reminder - with the Christmas peak approaching - that as more and more of our business is transacted online that we need to plan for peak surges far in excess of historical precedent.

Hitwise's newsletter contained the following table (position, search term, percentage share) for the month ended 12/8/06 for 'travel' related activity:

1. easyjet 0.99% 2. ryanair 0.76% 3. multimap 0.62% 4. aa route planner 0.49% 5. train times 0.41% 6. aa 0.37% 7. aa route finder 0.37% 8. google earth 0.34% 9. cheap flights 0.33% 10. thomas cook 0.31%

Note that the majority of traffic is to the low-cost, direct airlines. By a combination of the transactions being online and negligible contact centre support it's no wonder that people have to check online!

The AA and route planners also do well as people tried to avoid the mayhem.

For retailers - as Christmas sales reach up to 50% or more of sales participation - there will be unprecedented call upon the web systems - and later the delivery and returns operations.

Ian Jindal