MyTravel has overtaken lastminute.com in the online travel agency rankings for the first time and has seen the biggest increase in visits year on year
of any of the six main online travel providers.According to the latest figures released by Hitwise, the online traffic monitoring company, MyTravel's share of visits to its site has grown by 55 per cent year on year, which has moved MyTravel up three places in the rankings to third place, overtaking lastminute.com, First Choice and Thomas Cook.
MyTravel had its busiest online day ever on Sunday, January 14,2007, with over 300,000 people visiting its sites, which culminated in a record volume
of bookings for a single day.

Russell Gould, director of digital marketing for MyTravel, commented: "Over the last 12 months we have constantly improved our websites to make them as customer friendly as possible. For instance, we were the first of the major travel companies to adopt transparent pricing on our websites, making sure that all non-optional extras, such as fuel supplements, were included in the on-screen price, so that the price people see is the price that they pay."
All MyTravel's customer websites have experienced substantial growth, both in terms of traffic and share of bookings, over the last year. For example,
MyTravel¹s specialist short break operator Cresta Holidays, which offers the ability to dynamically package, has seen online bookings increase nine times
the level they were 12 months ago following a complete re-design of its website.
Alongside the site improvements and competitive pricing, the launch of a number of unique products and destinations by MyTravel such as Airtours'
Round the World trip and the first package holidays to China, have all
raised the popularity of MyTravel's online offering.
Gould concluded: "We recognise that you should make it as straightforward as possible for customers to find what they're looking for on your website and,
when they find it, you make sure they have all the information to hand to enable them to have the confidence to complete their booking online. "
MyTravel now regularly achieves over 25 per cent of its UK business online, compared to less than seven per cent two years ago.
Expedia is still in first place, the same as last year, with Thomsons retaining second spot. MyTravel is up to third from sixth last year.