lastminute.com - Investor Relations

lastminute.com/Degriftour show significantly greater reach than nearest ranked site in December according to NetValue

lastminute.com/Degriftour, the online provider of last minute solutions in France, has been recognised by French online travel industry analyst eTourism as the No. 1 French online travel site.

The results of eTourism's latest eIndices audit of the European online travel sector show lastminute.com/Degriftour to have demonstrated significantly greater reach than the nearest ranked site. The independent audit was based on 222 criteria - including security, ease of browsing and coherence - and took place between 18th December 2000 and 20th January 2001.

Specifically, the audit recognised that the lastminute.com/Degriftour brands are well established and are "already much ahead of the other French eTourism sites"(*). The analysis also noted that while the merger seemed straightforward on paper, the integration has been swiftly realised and with great success.

In addition to these figures, lastminute.com has also come out on top of the latest UK figures issued by NetValue, one of the leading internet monitoring companies. In its December 2000 analysis of the travel sector, NetValue identified that lastminute.com had considerably more than double the amount of unique visitors than the nearest ranked site. The same source in France places Degriftour.com as No 1 and lastminute.com as No 2 websites in the travel category.

According to Neilson Net Ratings lastminute.com showed 35% growth month on month from November to December 2000 demonstrating a much faster growth rate that all other UK etailers featured in the survey.

Commenting on the latest figures, Pierre Alzon, MD of lastminute.com - Degriftour, France, said: "This is a tremendous testament to the speed and efficiency of the way that our teams have worked to bring together the lastminute.com and Degriftour brands in France. This classification proves that not only we are the first in turnover, but also that we are the first in overall customer experience."

Brent Hoberman, CEO and co founder of lastminute.com continued, "Once again these results demonstrate the high level of demand in France and the UK for the lastminute.com service, while independently confirming the quality of our French customer proposition."