Outside the business generated from Kiwi accommodation provider's chosen booking engine on their own corporate website, Wotif.com continues to deliver more business than any other Online Travel Agent (OTA). Wotif.com's successful formula of codifying accommodation options in a simple comparative one page grid system has proven to be the most consumer friendly and is often copied by other OTAs.
Aussie-owned Wotif's impressive growth over successive years appears to have waned with an 8% comparative profit fall in the most recent six months reporting period. This has been attributed to a 4.8% drop in room night sales and increased expenditure in advertising that included a television advertising campaign.
In challenging economic times, Wotif has retained its number one position as Australasia's leading OTA by maintaining its accommodation market share with a high consumer awareness and increasing accommodation suppliers by 9 percent.
In this reporting period, Wotif.com extended its consumer bookable window from 3 to 6-months and it is noted that this has only marginally stretched the average booking lead-time from 13.45 to 13.76 days. The average nights booked has dipped slightly from 1.96 to 1.91 nights, however it is pleasing that average room-rates have increased by 5.9 percent.
Qualifying pedestrian trading results, Wotif Chief executive Robbie Cooke has been reported making the following comments:
"...several key Australian holiday destinations remained soft, meaning that domestic holidays were "great value propositions."Although Wotif do not separate Australian and New Zealand trading, we would guess that the challenges and trends are very similar between markets.
He said more people were "reawakening to the quality and variety of Australian leisure destinations, which peculiarly took an American, Oprah, to highlight to us".
Last year, he said, many consumers travelled overseas because of the high Australian dollar.
But falling consumer sentiment suggested there were early signs that more people were now choosing to take a holiday break at home.
However, the floods in Queensland, northern NSW and Victoria had dampened many consumers' appetite for domestic holidays."
We wonder what effect the earthquake in Christchurch will have on the psychology of Kiwi business travellers and holidaymakers?
Wotif.com Half Year Results to December 2010
