GfK to Pool Data from German Travel Portals

In Germany, GfK Travel Insights has set up a panel of online travel portals, from which it will evaluate data about holiday bookings.

More than 30 online travel portals have joined the panel, with members representing around 60% of the total turnover generated by tour operators from travel portals in Germany.

The new panel can draw on booking records that date back to early 2010, to enable clients to compare the current winter season and the summer of 2012 with the same seasons the previous year.

In addition, as GfK Travel Insights has tracked holiday bookings since 2005, it is able to measure trends in the tourist market across both online and traditional channels.

Plans are already underway to include online turnover generated by traditional travel commerce, and add online direct sales via tour operators.

Product Manager Dörte Nordbeck comments: 'Up to now, information on online travel sales business depended primarily on free figures delivered by portal providers, polls and counts by business experts. The new panel provides facts from the online sales business in Germany for the first time.'

Web site: www.gfk.com .