Leading accommodation listings website, iknow-uk says booking enquiries for the Lakes have doubled in the past few months, despite the economic climate.
www.iknow-lakedistrict.co.uk was launched four years ago. Since then, it’s been busy generating millions of pounds worth of booking enquiries for its members. And this year, things are looking even better.
Visitor numbers to the site were up from 40,000 in October 2007 to 49,000 in October 2008. In November, iknow saw an increase of almost 10,000 booking enquiries and December was double that of 2007 after just two weeks. The iknow-lakedistrict site has already received 15,000 visitors in the first week of January.
It seems the strong Euro is having an impact on British bookings and this theme looks set to continue through the main booking period of January and February. And it could provide Lake District hoteliers with a phenomenal opportunity this New Year.
Managing Director of iknow-uk, Marcus Simmons, comments “We put the increase down to a combination of two things; more people choosing to holiday in the UK and the increasing prominence of the iknow sites. This combination led to an unbelievable number of enquiries at the beginning of 2008 and this trend continued throughout the year.”
“We heard from a local MP recently that some of his hotel-owning constituents had seen a fall of 40% in their bookings in the final quarter of 2008. Our members have seen an increase of 50% on last year’s enquiries – so we must be doing something right. We’ve even had 168 booking enquiries for visits to the Lakes in December 2009!”
Since their launch in 2003, iknow-uk has been awarded Start Up Business of the Year and Best Commercial Website awards. They have also been presented with two Big Chip Awards; voted Best of Lancashire amongst their peers and were North West finalists in the National Business Awards 2008 for ‘The Orange Best Use of Technology Award’.
To find out more about one of the UK’s leading accommodation listings providers, or to arrange your free trial, visit www.iknow-uk.com/free-trial or call 0871 871 0851.
