www.houseoftravel.co.nz Collects Third Award

www.houseoftravel.co.nz Collects Third Award

Last night at the NetGuide Web Awards, House of Travel’s website was awarded the “Best Travel Site” sponsored by Panasonic.

The category description rates houseoftravel.co.nz as “the best site providing an aspect of travel services and information. This may include online facilities for purchasing and an online travel guide”.

House of Travel launched its booking website is October 2004 and now claims it accounts for 20% of its company’s annual turnover. Touted as a world first, the site provides consumers with all the airlines flying domestically, trans-Tasman and to the South Pacific.

House of Travel’s e-commerce director, Hilary Lewis, says the Kiwi built technology by House of Travel’s in-house IT team, picks up airfares which airlines display only on their website in addition to those that are provided on traditional airline systems.

“The technology is truly unique and does ensure consumers are getting all the options. If you go to an airlines site they are only ever going to show you their flights and with 11 different airlines flying the Tasman it’s amazing the deals you can get. In fact close to 70% of our flights booked to Australia are over one airline and back on another.”

Lewis said the award was public recognition that the site was user friendly and clearly filling a void for consumers – the ability to view all the airlines on one website.

“Interestingly 80% of our customers using our website are not traditional House of Travel customers, which is very exciting for us.”

A sample comment from one consumer voting about houseoftravel.co.nz was “Loads of info on travel, the destinations and how one should go about travelling.”

House of Travel has plans to expand and improve the site by adding additional features in the next six months.

House of Travel beat Air New Zealand and Zuji to claim the title of “Best Travel Site for 2006”. They have also recently won the supreme award for “Overall Excellence in the use of IT” at the Computerworld Excellence Awards and the “Number One Travel Agency Site” in the Hitwise Awards.

ENDS

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