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Hitwise Intelligence - Robin Goad - UK

Analyst Weblog

Category Archives: Travel

Travel relying less on seasonal peaks

December 23, 2011

Travel has always been a very seasonal industry online. Each year summer and winter holidays produce two clear and defined periods of online activity which we’ve been observing for years here at Hitwise. You can see from the graph below... Continue reading...

Tweet Posted by James Murray at 11:23 AM | (0)
In Categories Travel

Sharm el Sheikh breaks back into top 50 destinations list

August 31, 2011

With the latest travel quarterly report out today it’s time to look again at the top 50 destinations online that consumers want to fly to. Sharm-el-Sheikh emerged as the fastest moving destination this quarter, breaking back into the top 50... Continue reading...

Tweet Posted by James Murray at 02:25 PM | (0)
In Categories Travel

New York more popular than Australia for flight searches

June 02, 2011

Ever since we started looking at the most popular destinations by flight searches back in July 2010, New York has consistently been the number one place that UK Internet users want to visit. However, since the inception of the top... Continue reading...

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In Categories Travel

Ash Cloud causes spike to travel and weather sites

May 27, 2011

With fresh eruptions coming from Icelandic volcanoes this week, people have been searching online for the latest updates on the ash cloud to see if their travel arrangements will be disrupted. Looking at the downstream industries receiving traffic from ash... Continue reading...

Tweet Posted by Robin Goad at 02:18 PM | (0)
In Categories News and Media | Travel | Weather

First Choice brave to switch to all inclusive holidays

April 08, 2011

All-inclusive holidays have been enjoying a renaissance in recent years as travellers seek to control the costs of their trips abroad, but travel operator First Choice has made a bold move today by announcing that from 2012 all of its... Continue reading...

Tweet Posted by Robin Goad at 01:42 PM | (0)
In Categories Travel

Post Earthquake people want to fly to Japan, not away from it

March 17, 2011

The devastating events unfolding in Japan in the wake of the biggest earthquake recorded in the country’s history has been dominating news headlines since the earthquake struck Sendai on Friday 11 March. Unsurprisingly, UK Internet users have been searching for... Continue reading...

Tweet Posted by Robin Goad at 03:45 PM | (2) | (0)
In Categories Mosaic lifestyle | Travel

Egypt protests swamp holiday search terms

February 01, 2011

The recent political unrest in Egypt has had a dramatic effect on search term behaviour online and could cause a severe backlash to the Egyptian tourism industry. Protests in Cairo against president Hosni Mubarak and warnings from the Foreign and... Continue reading...

Tweet Posted by Robin Goad at 10:37 AM | (1) | (0)
In Categories Government | Politics | Travel

Snow dictates search behaviour to news, travel and retail sites

December 20, 2010

Online search behaviour was dictated this weekend by the snow. With the flakes falling thick and fast on Saturday there were huge spikes in traffic to news, weather, travel and social networking sites. With reports of up to five inches... Continue reading...

Goa and Marrakech fastest moving winter sun destinations this quarter

November 30, 2010

With snow up and down the country it’s little wonder that Brits are thinking of warmer climes and wanting to get away for winter sun holidays. One of the insights to come out of our latest quarterly travel report is... Continue reading...

Thomas Cook capitalises on Ryder Cup travel traffic

October 14, 2010

Last Friday Thomas Cook made the announcement of a proposed tie up with The Co-operative Travel, bringing together two of the UK’s biggest multi-channel travel companies. According to the Financial Times, the merger will give Thomas Cook a 34% market... Continue reading...

Tweet Posted by Robin Goad at 12:39 PM | (0)
In Categories Search | Sport | Travel

New York No1 destination in first ever top 50 flights list

September 13, 2010

In our first ever list of the top 50 flight destinations, as searched for by UK Internet users, New York has come out as the most popular destination worldwide. Between May and July 2010 New York was the most popular... Continue reading...

Tweet Posted by Robin Goad at 02:18 PM | (0)
In Categories Search | Travel

London Tube strikes cause surge in traffic to TfL website

September 08, 2010

With travel in the capital thrown into chaos over the last couple of days due to the 24-hour tube strikes, London commuters have been frantically checking online for regular service updates from Transport for London (TfL). Two separate strikes began... Continue reading...

Harry Potter fever: Wizarding World theme park, Deathly Hallows, Lego game

July 09, 2010

With the unveiling in June of the Universal theme park, the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, the movie trailer for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and the release of Lego Harry Potter: Years 1-4, it's fair to say that... Continue reading...

South African Airways and beer companies biggest beneficiaries of World Cup sponsorship so far

June 15, 2010

Every week during the World Cup we’ll be publishing the Experian Hitwise Brand Search Index, our way of measuring a selection of brands’ sponsorship activities. The Index is based upon the volume of UK Internet searches for multiple variations of... Continue reading...

Luxury and bespoke searches: travel, fashion and furniture

May 19, 2010

Yesterday I presented at the Luxury Interactive 2010 conference in London, and I thought I’d share a couple of the finding from the research that I carried out for the event. The first thing I did was to look at... Continue reading...

Volcanic ash cloud: online travel impact

April 19, 2010

Last week UK Internet users searched for over 10,000 different searches containing the word ‘volcano’, up from less than 1,000 the previous week. The reason for this surge was the volcanic eruption in Iceland that has caused travel chaos across... Continue reading...

The dotcom bubble: 10 years on

March 10, 2010

Today is the tenth anniversary of the bursting of the dotcom bubble, so I though it would be interesting to see how the Internet landscape has changed over the last decade. Below is a list of the top 20 websites... Continue reading...

Travel sites show improvement in the latest IMRG-HITWISE HOT SHOPS LIST

March 03, 2010

Yesterday saw the release of the sixteenth quarterly edition of the IMRG-HITWISE HOT SHOPS LIST, which ranks by popularity, as indicated by visits, the top 50 UK e-retailers selling goods and services within the IMRG Index Classification. Click here to... Continue reading...

Top websites in France

February 09, 2010

Bonjour! It’s a very exciting day at Experian Hitwise towers today because we have announced the launch of Hitwise France! The Hitwise France service will provide clients with data on website industry and category rankings, Clickstream traffic activity, search behaviour... Continue reading...

UK Internet visits to skiing and snowboarding websites up 18.5% year on year

January 22, 2010

The recent heavy snow and cold weather may have caused travel chaos in some parts of the UK, but it clearly has also served to remind people of the pleasures of winter sports. For the week ending 9th January 2010,... Continue reading...

Snow causes traffic to Weather and Transport websites to reach all time high

January 15, 2010

UK Internet visits to both Transport and Weather websites reached an all time high last week as British people flocked online to keep up to date with the latest snow developments. For the week ending January 9th 2010, Weather websites... Continue reading...

2009 online: the year in review

December 21, 2009

The end of the year presents and excellent opportunity for reflection, and also for lists. Combining the two, I’ve decided to reflect on the last year of online activity in the UK by providing a list of our most popular... Continue reading...

How do people search for travel in the UK?

October 07, 2009

Today we present another guest post from Richard Seymour, Experian Hitwise Client Intelligence Analyst. The data is based on the excellent research that he and Iain Congdon, another Experian Hitwise analyst in the UK, carried out for our recent Global... Continue reading...

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... Continue reading...

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

Voucher searches up 47.5% in a year

August 17, 2009

UK Internet searches for discount vouchers have increased by 47.5% over the last 12 months. The increase in searches for a portfolio of 4,500+ voucher-related search terms between the weeks ending 02/08/2008 and 01/08/2009 clearly reflects British consumers’ hunger for... Continue reading...

The role of paid search and comparison sites in the insurance sector

July 14, 2009

The insurance industry relies on paid search traffic more than most other online sectors. During June 2009, 33.0% of all the UK Internet traffic that insurance websites received from search engines came via paid clicks. That paid search rate is... Continue reading...

UK traffic to Polish websites declining

May 28, 2009

Last year we highlighted the massive growth in UK Internet traffic to Polish websites, noting how the increase in visits to a custom category local and expat sites reflected the growth of the Polish immigrant population in the UK. Things... Continue reading...

Increase in traffic to train, bus and coach websites

May 26, 2009

Despite positive news from Virgin Atlantic today, there is no doubt that these are tough times for the airline industry. UK Internet traffic to websites in our Aviation – Commercial Airlines category (which is dominated by the airline's homepages) was... Continue reading...

Tweet Posted by Robin Goad at 11:00 AM | (0)
In Categories Economy | Maps | Search | Travel

Travel industry experiences decline in paid search

April 30, 2009

Last week I highlighted the overall decline in the UK paid search rate over the last 12 months, and focused on the retail sector in particular. I also promised to provide similar analysis for some other industries, so here is... Continue reading...

Google Maps visits up 41% following UK Street View launch

March 20, 2009

Following the launch of Google Street View in the UK yesterday (19 March 2009), UK Internet visits to Google Maps UK Increased by 41%. This was the busiest ever day for Google Maps in the UK, and as a result... Continue reading...

TV and Games are UK's most searched for subjects

March 09, 2009

For our second guest posting on the UK blog, I’d like to hand over to Richard Seymour, Hitwise UK Client Intelligence Analyst, to take us through some of the research he has carried out recently on UK Search Engines. For... Continue reading...

Snow and football transfers

February 03, 2009

Yesterday was the busiest ever day for weather websites in the UK. As the chart below illustrates, websites in our Weather category picked up 1.6% of all UK Internet visits, equivalent to 1 in every 63. And once people discovered... Continue reading...

Tweet Posted by Robin Goad at 03:30 PM | (0)
In Categories Football | Sport | Travel | Weather

Flight search and travel data update

January 15, 2009

After reporting a decline in flight searches last week in the FT and on our blog, we received a number of comments: on the blog post, via Twitter and elsewhere. Many of the questions have been addressed in the comments... Continue reading...

Tweet Posted by Robin Goad at 11:30 AM | (1) | (0)
In Categories Economy | Search | Travel

Searches for flights down 42% on last year

January 08, 2009

UK Internet searches for flights have fallen by 42% over the last 12 months. January is a key month for the travel industry, as UK consumers’ thoughts turn from Christmas shopping to booking their summer holidays, but the economic downturn... Continue reading...

Tweet Posted by Robin Goad at 11:00 AM | (9) | (0)
In Categories Economy | Search | Travel

Eating out: afternoon tea, listing sites and the MoneySavingExpert

November 14, 2008

Last month we published a blog about recipe searches and promised to follow up with another post about eating out and restaurant websites. Well, here’s the post and there’s a lot to cover, from afternoon tea at the Ritz to... Continue reading...

Exchange rates, currency sites and the strong Dollar

November 12, 2008

Following our post on the interest rate cut earlier in the week, we’ve been looking at the impact of exchange rates on UK Internet behaviour. For the last few years, people travelling to the US from the UK (and the... Continue reading...

Tweet Posted by Robin Goad at 09:00 AM | (2) | (0)
In Categories Economy | Financial Services | Travel

Economic downturn benefits budget travel and cruises

October 29, 2008

UK Internet traffic to travel websites fell by 4.6% between September 2007 and September 2008, but certain sectors are thriving despite, or in some cases because of, the squeeze on household budgets. UK Internet visits to a Hitwise custom category... Continue reading...

Top Ski Resorts

September 24, 2008

UK Internet searches for ski holidays started to take off at the start of September and, if historical activity is anything to go by, they will continue increasing until Christmas, before gradually declining into virtual hibernation by April. One of... Continue reading...

Tweet Posted by Robin Goad at 10:21 AM | (3) | (0)
In Categories Search | Sport | Travel

Fast moving search terms: LHC, big bang, Andy Murray and XL

September 15, 2008

The 10 fastest moving search terms in the UK last week were: 1. large hardron collider 2. hurricane ike 3. lhc 4. xl 5. big bang 6. tour of britain 7. itv f1 8. andy murray 9. black hole 10.... Continue reading...

Paid search rates by industry

September 09, 2008

We launched our New Search Intelligence tool in the UK today and, amongst other enhancements, it includes additional paid / organic search data. One great new feature allows you to measure paid search rates by industry, so I thought I’d... Continue reading...

Zoom Airlines collapse benefits BA

August 29, 2008

Zoom Airlines, the UK / Canadian budget long haul carrier, has grounded its planes and is preparing to go into administration. Following the announcement yesterday, UK Internet users flocked to its website. www.flyzoom.com became the 8th most visited website in... Continue reading...

Tweet Posted by Robin Goad at 11:20 AM | (0)
In Categories Travel

Car hire / rental – search habits and top destinations

August 20, 2008

Summer is the busiest time for car hire companies, and this applies to their websites as well. We’ve recently carried out some analysis of car hire search behaviour in the UK, and I wanted to share some of the key... Continue reading...

Tweet Posted by Robin Goad at 04:00 PM | (3) | (0)
In Categories Branding | Search | Travel

National Express: using the web to monitor a rebranding campaign

August 15, 2008

Yesterday we reported than almost nine in ten searches for the top 2,000 search terms in the UK are currently navigational / branded in nature. In our new Managing Your Brand Online report we show that a popular brand will... Continue reading...

Tweet Posted by Robin Goad at 06:57 AM | (0)
In Categories Branding | Search | Travel

Superbrands: demographics and lifestyle information

July 23, 2008

The Centre for Brand Analysis released its list of the top Superbrands in the UK earlier this week, with Google taking the top spot after placing third last year. By looking at the profile of visitors to their homepages, we... Continue reading...

Postcode searches and SEO

June 03, 2008

One of the more curious and unexpected fast moving search terms that we spotted on Monday was ‘b78 3tw’. As you can probably guess, this is a postcode. Specifically, it is the postcode of Drayton Manor Park, a popular theme... Continue reading...

All inclusive holidays popular in a weak economy

May 13, 2008

The combination of a weakening economy, falling house prices and a rising cost of living thanks to inflation mean that many British consumers are looking for ways to cut their expenditure. Add in the impact of a strong Euro (although... Continue reading...

Tweet Posted by Robin Goad at 10:30 AM | (0)
In Categories Economy | Search | Travel | Weather

UK Polish Internet usage on the rise

February 20, 2008

Estimates as to the number of Polish people in the UK range from half a million to over a million. Mass immigration from Central and Eastern Europe has led to a rush for the ‘Polish Pound’, with everyone from multinational... Continue reading...

Paid and organic search trends

February 14, 2008

One of the most powerful Hitwise tools is our paid and organic search data. We’ve been analyzing this and have come up with some interesting trends for the travel and retail industries. Before I get into the analysis; a quick... Continue reading...

Ryanair website downtime

February 08, 2008

Every now and then websites have to be taken down for maintenance. Companies that rely heavily on their websites to generate revenue – retailers, webmail providers, social networks, media organizations – obviously try to minimize this disruption as much as... Continue reading...

Tweet Posted by Robin Goad at 03:30 PM | (1) | (0)
In Categories Travel

Moonpig.com, Valentine’s poems and romantic breaks

February 07, 2008

Online card delivery company Moonpig.com is currently experiencing its highest ever level of UK Internet traffic in the run up to Valentine’s Day. For the week ending 2 February 2008, UK Internet visits to the website have grown six-fold by... Continue reading...

Yahoo! and Microsoft: UK perspective

February 05, 2008

Following on from Bill’s and Heather’s posts, I wanted to share some UK data on the proposed Yahoo! and Microsoft deal. First up: webmail services, and as the chart below illustrates, Microsoft has a dominant market share with its Hotmail... Continue reading...

Top Ski destinations

January 18, 2008

There were worries that recent storms in Scotland might cause the snow to melt too quickly for the country to have a viable ski season this year. However, looking at Hitwise data this doesn’t seem to have deterred ski enthusiasts... Continue reading...

Tweet Posted by Robin Goad at 02:49 PM | (0)
In Categories Search | Sport | Travel

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... Continue reading...

Tweet Posted by Robin Goad at 04:00 PM | (1) | (1)
In Categories Search | Travel

Christmas market search trends

December 05, 2007

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,... Continue reading...

Control, Manchester and Factory Records

October 09, 2007

Last week I was in Manchester for the excellent Manchester Digital conference. As a music fan, the city is forever linked in my mind with the Factory Records and the late Anthony H. Wilson. There have been a number of... Continue reading...

Cheap vs. Free

September 13, 2007

This week's Guardian Siteseeing column was inspired by Sandra's and Bill's recent posts on search value determinants. The main similarity between search behaviours in the UK and the other regions is the use of 'cheap' to search for travel and... Continue reading...

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... Continue reading...

Tweet Posted by Robin Goad at 12:40 PM | (0)
In Categories Travel

Robin Goad

Research Director, Hitwise UK.