In the six months from November 2000 to April 2001, the number of visitors increased by nearly 1m in each of the three biggest markets -- France, Germany and the UK. More than 4m UK users visited travel sites in the last six months.
Europeans visit travel sites not only to find cheap deals, but to research their holidays in advance, according to Jupiter MMXI. In the UK and Germany, visits peak in July, January and February. In France, the peaks are in July and March.
During these peaks, visitors spend more time on travel sites than other popular categories such as retail and news and information sites. Travel sites have been popular with European home users since Jupiter began measuring internet behaviour in 1999.
In the UK, Easyjet.com, Britishairways.com, Railtrack.co.uk and Thetrainline.com are consistently in the top 10 travel sites, with Ebookers.com, Expedia.co.uk, Lastminute.com and Thomascook.co.uk also holding strong positions. Lastminute.com is the only site to appear in the top 10 in the UK, France, Germany, Spain, Italy and Sweden.
www.jupitermmxi.com