Icelolly claims to be UK’s largest package holiday comparison site
Icelolly.com is claiming to be the UK’s largest package holiday comparison site, based on the latest Hitwise figures.
While overall visits to travel agency websites have dropped 17% in the first five months of this year, compared to the same period in 2018, icelolly has enjoyed growth.
An independent Hitwise study, commissioned by icelolly, compared the company to its closest package holiday competitor, TravelSupermarket, plus Kayak, Travelzoo, Dealchecker, and Holiday Pirates.
It found icelolly visits surpassed TravelSupermarket and Holiday Pirates during quarter one and are helping it to close the gap with Travelzoo and Kayak.
Kayak leads the category overall, but icelolly chief marketing officer Ross Matthews said Kayak was predominantly a flight search website.
When the research looked specifically at the visitors researching package holidays, icelolly came out top, he said.
Figures for May showed that while some of its closest competitors suffered significant drops in visits, icelolly had experienced growth (see below).
Matthews said the research also showed that icelolly attracts the largest share of package holiday bookers within icelolly’s own visitor audience.
Awareness of the icelolly.com brand now stands at 40% – an increase of 5% since the turn of the year.
"This new independent research confirms what we’ve already been discussing with our partners including the UK’s largest tour operators, OTA’s, travel agents and cruise lines with whom we have forged strong relationships: icelolly.com is the No1 holiday price comparison," said Matthews.
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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