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Hitwise Intelligence - Robin Goad - UK
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Long-haul travel searches increase
January 04, 2008
With Christmas over and the weather getting worse, at this time year UK thoughts turn to holidays in warmer climes. As you can see from the chart below, this leads to a seasonal boost for travel websites in January. And this year is no exception. Last week saw the first notable increase across all three major categories – airlines, travel agencies and hotels – since the traditional post-summer decline.
Next week we’ll provide some more detailed analysis on the Destinations & Accommodation and Agencies sectors, but today I wanted to focus on commercial airlines. British Airways has just started its annual January sale and, as the chart below illustrates, it moved into the number one position in the category last week for the first time since November. The amount of traffic BA receives from email more than doubled last week, while search engine traffic also increased, pointing to a successful combined email and offline marketing campaign.
Search data for the aviation sector always gives a good indication of where people are choosing to go on holiday each year. The table below illustrates the top 20 search terms containing ‘flights to’ for the 4 weeks ending 29 December 2007 and the equivalent period the previous year. Destinations highlighted in red have dropped out of the top 20 since last time, while those highlighted in green have either entered the top 20 this time or moved up the rankings.
Australia remains the most popular destination, although there has been a fall in searches for ‘cheap flights to australia’. New York stays in second place, but has increased its ranking for both ‘flights to’ and ‘cheap flights to’ searches. The highest climbers this year are long-haul and winter sun destination; although closer to home there has also been an increase in searches for flights to Paris and Amsterdam.
Posted by Robin Goad at 04:00 PM
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In Categories Search | Travel
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Hitwise analyst blog With Christmas over and the weather getting worse, at this time year UK thoughts turn to holidays in warmer climes. As you can see from the chart below, this leads to a seasonal boost for travel websites... [Read More]
