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Hitwise Intelligence - Robin Goad - UK

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50%+ increases in US and Australian Internet searches for flights to the UK

September 30, 2009

Both American and Australian Internet searches for flights to the UK have increased by more than 50% over the last 12 months. Between August 2008 and August 2009 the volume of Internet searches for a portfolio of search terms relating to searches for flights to the United Kingdom (for example: ‘cheap flights to the UK’, ‘london flights’, ‘flights to glasgow scotland’) increased by 55.6% in the USA and 50.4% in Australia.

The weakness of the Pound against the Dollar and Euro resulted in a boom year for the domestic tourist industry this year, as many Britons chose to take a ‘staycation’ in the UK rather than go abroad. In addition to this domestic boost, the weak Pound has also had the effect of making the UK a cheaper destination for tourists from overseas. This in turn has led to these increases in searches for flights to the UK from two of the most important markets for the UK tourism industry.

Over half of both American and Australian searches for flights to the UK during August 2009 specified London, or one of its airports, as the destination. The second most popular destination for UK-bound flight searches from both countries was Edinburgh. Other popular British travel related terms included ‘map of england’ (which was the most popular UK travel search term in the USA) and ‘car hire uk’ (the most popular non-flight related UK travel search term in Australia).

During August, British Airways was the second biggest recipient of searches for UK-bound flights in the USA after Cheapflights.com, while Virgin Atlantic ranked fifth. British Airways was also the most popular non-domestic airline website in the USA, ranking 17th in the Commercial Airlines category during August, three places ahead of Germany’s Lufthansa. Virgin Atlantic ranked 28th, while Ryanair was 47th and easyJet 68th.

The fact that the main budget airlines serving the UK are receiving traffic from markets they don’t currently serve directly implies that people are flying into London from long haul destinations and then using the city as a base for further domestic or European flights. US Internet visits to Ryanair’s website have increased by 8.7% this year, while in Australia traffic to easyJet’s homepage has gone up by 50.4%.

When it comes to the popular ‘kangaroo route’ between Australia and the UK, the market remains extremely competitive. The airline that received the most traffic from Australian searches for flights to the UK during August was Malaysia Airlines, followed by Emirates and Etihad. Virgin Atlantic ranked 5th, while British Airways was 6th and its codeshare partner Qantas was fourth. Overall, Quantas is the most visited airline website in Australia, but the big Asian and Middle Eastern carriers (including Singapore Airlines, Emirates, Malaysia Airlines and Cathay Pacific – all of which fly between Australia and the UK) all picked up more Australian Internet visits than either British Airways or Virgin Atlantic.

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Posted by Robin Goad at 11:50 AM | (0) | (0)
In Categories Demographics | Search | Travel