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Hitwise Intelligence - Robin Goad - UK
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Bank holiday search terms
August 29, 2007
Well, who would have predicted it? We have terrible weather all through the summer and then on the bank holiday weekend the sun comes out. I thought it would be interesting to see if the weather had an effect on peoples’ search habits, so I compared search term suggestions for 'bank holiday' for the 4 weeks running up to this bank holiday with the same 4 weeks last year. For good measure I also ran the same analysis on the 4 weeks running up to the second May bank holiday this year. The table below shows the top 10 most searched for terms, excluding generic terms such as ‘bank holiday’, ‘bank holiday weekend’, ‘bank holiday 2007’, ‘bank holiday may’, etc.
It seems that the bad weather has made people more cautious: four of the top 10 searches this year were weather-related (highlighted in pink above), compared to just 1 in 10 last year and in May. The promise of good weather seems to have encouraged people seek out local events (highlighted yellow) rather than make a last minute dash away like last year (highlighted blue). Local events were even more popular in May. Maybe it’s because all of those people that searched for ‘bank holiday pay’ couldn’t afford a weekend away?
And what of DIY, that other Great British Bank Holiday Tradition? Well, the good news for retailers is that visits to Shopping and Classified – House and Garden websites were up 5% on last year. Here’s hoping that all the people buying garden furniture will have a few more weekends to enjoy their latest purchases.
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Posted by Robin Goad at 12:40 PM
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In Categories Travel
