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Half of Thomas Cook bookings are on the web
Customers taking a holiday from the high street

By Julian Goldsmith

Published: Wednesday 03 December 2008

Travel company Thomas Cook has revealed half of its northern European bookings for the financial year were made online.

However, the thirst for web bookings isn't uniform among countries: the travel agent said 27 per cent of UK bookings were made over the web in the twelve months ending 30 September, while German customers were more inclined to use offline methods with only 7 per cent of bookings made over the internet in the same period.

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In its end of year report, the company said it launched a new e-commerce platform called Starfish in October.

Thomas Cook CEO Manny Fontenla-Novoa said in a statement: "The capabilities that allow customers to draw up shortlists and compare options they are considering are proving particularly popular and the conversion rates we are getting from visitors using these functions is more than three times the rate of other users of the website."

The company also made cost savings of £142m following the systems integration of acquisition MyTravel, which was bought in 2007. Thomas Cook forecasted total savings of £215m by 2010.