If your site visitors cannot choose a product within 11.5 seconds (the average time it takes in the offline world) you are losing lots of business according to Amadeus. E-Consultancy has picked up on research by Akamai that users will wait four seconds before potentially leaving a retail site. They make a good headline but not sure of the value of these figures. Is it the same for first time visitors over returning ones? Will the value of the product alter the average time users click away?

Travelodge are diverting the majority of its marketing budget away from traditional media to online. If my maths is right it currently spends approximately 10% a year on online advertising. The digital campaign will promote the chain’s hotels and look to increase the number of bookings made through their site. (Source: Marketing 5 Nov 2006)

Destination UK is a relatively new monthly publication (issue 4 November) to promote UK tourism to the world’s travel trade. It covers the latest news on markets and attractions across the UK and is sent to 10,000 professionals. Not much of an online presence at the moment, with a link to their media pack and some September news items. It’s a slightly odd size, a bit larger than A4. Included a scan of the cover and a page below.

Back in October Times Online asked users to recommend their favourite 120 travel sites.