Travel.co.uk Launches Innovative Comparison Shopping Site

London, United Kingdom, July 11, 2008 --(PR.com)-- The site has been designed to overcome the weaknesses of existing travel comparison sites by providing new evaluation tools and direct access to the reservation systems of many of the UK’s leading tour operators and travel agents whilst retaining a simple, intuitive, interface. The site also includes a brand-new concept of linking consumers with their preferred choice of travel retailer and enabling bookings to be made without having to visit another website.

Where many comparison sites are based on holiday advertising that quickly becomes out of date, travel.co.uk is able to display real-time availability and accurate pricing for the widest selection of package holiday deals across the UK travel industry, with no agency or operator bias and immediate booking. Price differentials are clearly displayed on a 30 day grid and bar chart to assist those who are particularly cost-conscious and can be flexible with their date of departure.

A crucial requirement of a good comparison website is that there is enough information on each deal to enable users to compare two or more offers properly. Travel.co.uk has gone to great lengths to integrate tour operators' brochure descriptions and photos, video footage of over 1000 of the most popular hotels, Trip Advisor™ user reviews, climate and weather statistics and Google maps. It also allows consumers to save their favourite holidays to a shortlist and then compare all the features side by side in a comparison table.

Travel.co.uk insists on working only with suppliers whose prices are OFT (Office of Fair Trading) compliant, meaning the holiday prices displayed are the prices consumers will pay. So unlike other sites, there will be no nasty surprises of extra supplements, fuel surcharges or room ‘under-occupancy’ levies. Any child discounts are included too.

Ray Mason, Managing Director of travel.co.uk and former MD of Octopustravel.com, said “Our research revealed that one of the most annoying things for users about travel comparison sites is how, once they’ve found a deal they like, they are sent to another site to book. Quite often they then have to search for their chosen holiday again and, if they do find it, are often disappointed to discover that it’s either no longer available or it’s at a higher price. All in all, that tends to be a rubbish experience. As travel.co.uk links directly into suppliers’ booking systems, a user can now quickly and easily, search compare, find and book with the provider of their choice - all from one site.”

Most package holidays are available for sale through multiple outlets – whether it be the tour operator directly, a national travel agent or a small independent agency. Travel.co.uk not only enables users to compare the different prices that different retailers will sell a holiday for, but also allows consumers to choose the retailer they want to book with, whether on a price, organisational, location or even speciality focus basis.

Travel.co.uk includes the option of booking with a personal travel agent too. There are over a thousand home-based travel agents in the UK, most of them affiliated with one of a number of large, independent groups such as Hays Travel or Co-operative Travel. For consumers who prefer to speak to someone when booking their holiday, being able to select their own personal travel agent, based upon the profiles presented on the site and an in-depth telephone conversation, will provide reassurance that they have selected both the right holiday and the right adviser.

At launch, the website focuses solely on tour operators' package holidays and features deals from a dozen of the UK's leading operators and a limited number of agents. But there is much more to come. Mason explains: "New products and more agents will be added steadily over the coming weeks and months. Our next big step will be to integrate packages made up of low-cost airlines combined with discounted hotels. This will allow consumers quickly and easily to compare tour operator packages with no-frills airline and accommodation options side-by-side.”

Travel.co.uk also has plans to allow customers to rate the service provided by each agent based upon their own experiences and for these reviews to be available on the site.

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