London, 29 April 2010 – Stranded travellers searching in vain for a way home caused disruption in new ways to the web-dependent travel industry. Traffic and conversion trends to all travel sectors turned on their heads, sites crashed, and ecommerce staff themselves were redeployed to man overloaded call-centres. In an industry totally dependent on web-based communications and transactions, there are serious lessons to be learned, according to the TradeDoubler Insight team.

Transactional traffic to airline sites dropped significantly in the midst of the volcanic ash travel disruption, and due to both confidence and availability, conversion rates halved in many cases.

On 21st April when the airspace re-opened, traffic to flight sites was still slightly down, the conversion rate jumped 36%, which was not the massive jump the airlines hoped for. This is mostly likely the result of alternative means of transport already put in place by stranded travellers in the interim.

On the other hand, traffic to other sectors, such as ferries and trains enjoyed up to 250% boost whilst UK airspace was closed. Providers included in the study enjoyed record volumes of bookings, although availability of inventory was an issue. The good news for these sectors, was that once airline travel resumed again, traffic dropped but remained higher than the same period prior to the disruption.

Deeper analysis examined successful purchase paths before, during and after the disruption. Navigational paths and use of media by consumers remained stable, apart from a significant uplift in use of paid search links – perhaps due to the urgency experienced by distressed travellers.

Interestingly, for rail travel, click paths also remained unchanged (i.e. average clicks in a journey remained steady compared to the same period in March). This is most likely the result of availability. Whilst users were heading to these sites with the intention to purchase, many simply found that trains and ferries were unavailable – hence the increase in non-transactional traffic during the period.

The analysis was performed on UK traffic and conversion data, by the TradeDoubler Insight team. The team also works on client-specific assignments, identifying new sources of transactional uplift by mining and modelling underlying channel data.

About TradeDoubler
TradeDoubler is an international digital marketing company offering a range of performance-based marketing solutions. TradeDoubler's products and services provide companies with the tools and expertise to drive results online whether they are looking to generate sales, leads or traffic or drive brand awareness. Headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, the company boasts a unique global reach spanning 18 countries in Europe. With a breadth of expertise across multiple industry sectors and a network of more than 128,000 website publishers, TradeDoubler helps deliver results for over 1,800 advertisers including a mix of local and international companies such as Apple Store, Dell, TeliaSonera and Kelkoo. TradeDoubler is listed on Nasdaq OMX Stockholm Exchange. Please visit www.tradedoubler.com  for further information.

For further information, please contact:
Kim Lynch
Devonshire Marketing
Tel: 0870 7000 166
Email:kim[at]devonshiremarketing[dot]com

Distributed on behalf of Devonshire Marketing by NeonDrum (http://www.neondrum.com)
Nicky Denovan
Tel: +44 7747 017654
nicky[at]neondrum[dot]com