Big four travel websites outperform travel specialists
Quick survey shows that the web’s top four travel sites Expedia.com, Orbitz.com, Travelocity.com and Priceline.com return more hotels than specialist sites
St Patrick’s Day, an annual feast day of Ireland’s patron saint St Patrick is one of the most recognized holidays on the global calendar. The event is celebrated worldwide, but most fervently in Dublin, Ireland where it is a five-day festival.
A last minute survey on hotel availability for St Patrick’s Day festivities in Dublin from leading European Specialist travel sites and the internet’s Big Four travel sites finds that the top four still come up trumps when it comes to hotel inventory and availability.
The following sites were compared:
| Leading European travel specialists | Vs | Big Four |
| Booking.com | | Expedia.com (NASDAQ: EXPE) |
| Lastminute.com | | Orbitz.com (NYSE: OWW) |
| Laterooms.com | | Travelocity.com |
| Opodo.co.uk | | Priceline.com (NASDAQ: PCLN) |
The number of available hotels returned for a five night stay 13-18 March, 2007 for Dublin, Ireland:
| Travel Website | Available Hotels |
| Orbitz.com | 157 |
| Expedia.co.uk | 145 |
| Booking.com | 129 |
| Travelocity.com | 127 |
| Laterooms.com | 125 |
| Priceline.com | 102 |
| Opodo.co.uk | 66 |
| Lastminute.com | 65 |
Notes:
- Conducted March 03, 2007
- The survey counts hotels which have at least one room available for reservation.
- The number of available hotels returned for a 5 night stay 13-18 March for Dublin, Ireland.
Orbitz.com topped the list followed by Expedia, Travelocity and Priceline, respectively. The best performing European specialist site Laterooms.com, also a lastminute hotel booking site performed as well as some of the major brands.
Michael Doubinski, Business Development Manager of HotelsCombined.com said:
“At first the results seem surprising however, given the strength of the big brands and their strong distribution relationships it makes sense that they should have the best availability”
“On HotelsCombined.com, we show all these brands, from niche sites to all the major online brands. Consumers can use our website to get results from all these hotel reservation websites on a single webpage. They don’t have to search each hotel website individually to compare pricing and availability information. That way, they can get the maximum results for hotel availability for any destination and the lowest prices for any hotel”.
About HotelsCombined.com:
HotelsCombined.com is a hotel metasearch engine which searches over 30 hotel reservation websites at once to find the lowest prices for any hotel, anywhere. HotelsCombined.com was established in 2005 by ex-management of HotelClub.com and RatesToGo.com.
|
