LastMinuteTravel.com,
the one-stop
superstore for travel at the last minute, today announced a record
breaking January for both transactional and promotional revenue. 
The
site, which was founded in 1997, and re-engineered this past year,
reports its highest advertising sales volume since its inception,
coupled with a steady increase in air and hotel bookings.  The site
generated a revenue increase in January 2003 of more than 250% over
revenue for January of 2002.  The record-breaking month, and the steady
increase in volume of paid promotional offerings on the site during the
past year is attributed to three factors: the spiraling growth in
last-minute
travelers; the myriad of technology improvements to the site; and the
travel industry`s need to find immediate and
impactful media.

“LastMinuteTravel.com has been able to dramatically grow its promotional
partners over the last few months because of our ability to connect
travel suppliers who are in need of moving inventory quickly with
spontaneous travel consumers who are buying travel at the last minute,”
said Alan Greenberg, chairman, The Last Minute Travel(r) Network. “Our
site`s targeted approach makes it easy for travel partners to
effectively organize and advertise last-minute availability and
promotions to a highly spontaneous audience of experienced online travel
buyers,” added Greenberg. 

The travel industry has been moving towards a last-minute economy for
several years, but this past year has put intense pressure on the
industry to be able to offer promotions and specials that can be created
and executed within days instead of weeks. As the premiere site for
travel at the last minute, LastMinuteTravel.com excels in this category.

As LastMinuteTravel.com looks towards 2003, it is well positioned to
exploit the predicted increase in revenue for online advertising.
Advertising Age recently reported that although overall advertising
spending will only increase 4.5% in 2003, the Internet will see
ad-spending jump by 7.4%, higher then increases for any other
traditional medium. In addition, Jupiter Research
recently published
predictions that travel companies in particular would dedicate more of
their advertising budgets to the Web, making LastMinuteTravel.com well
poised to benefit from the anticipated tripling of online travel media
spending by 2007.
  “This will be a big year for LastMinuteTravel.com,
and we are off to a tremendous start,” added Greenberg.  “The
ever-increasing momentum from out promotional partners, coupled with
significant traffic growth and the launch of several major product
enhancements this quarter means good news for our shareholders.”

Related stories on ITN:
(17/07/2002) Pegasus to Power Internet Hotel Bookings for LastMinuteTravel.com

(05/06/2002) Priceline.com Launches Name Your Own Price on LastMinuteTravel

(28/03/2002) LastMinuteTravel Doubles Sales

——-