December 05, 2007

Christmas market search trends

The setting up of a Christmas market just around the corner from the Hitwise UK office made me realize just how popular these seasonal attractions have become. According to Wikipedia, the first Christmas market was held in Dresden in 1434, so they’ve been established in central Europe for a long time. UK consumers became interested a few years ago, first by travelling to cities in Germany and elsewhere, and then via the appearance of home grown markets in a number of British cities. As the chart below illustrates, the breadth of searches containing the terms ‘christmas market’ and ‘christmas markets’ increases gradually throughout the year, but really takes off during September

The most popular search terms containing the two phrases are those that include specific locations, and they give an interesting insight into which markets people are interested in. During November this year, the most searched for locations were UK cities, with Lincoln, Bath and Manchester the most popular.

However, searches for Christmas markets vary depending on term being used and the time of year. People searching for markets outside of the UK are more likely to use the plural. They are also more likely to start searching earlier in the year, presumably in order to allow time to plan travel. To illustrate this, the list above includes 13 UK locations and 6 overseas; while the list below - which is for ‘christmas markets’ rather than ‘christmas market’, and is for September this year rather than December - includes just 6 UK locations, but 12 overseas.

Posted by Robin Goad at 09:00 AM
Posted to Christmas | Food | Retail | Search | Shopping and Classifieds | Travel

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