Interactive Search Data

Thu, 26 Jul 2007

As we head towards August and the British summer is still looking a total wash-out, our thoughts turn to holidays in the sun, and an increasing number of adults are going online to fulfil their foreign travel desires. Indeed, 25% of adults used the internet to book their last flight/holiday in the 12 months ending March 2007, compared with 23.6% in 2006 and a meagre 16% in 2004. The GB TGI figures for adults booking just a holiday online are similar - 24.2% in the 12 months to March 2007 compared with 12.4% in 2004. Expedia, Thompson Holidays and Lastminute.com continue to be the most popular UK travel sites, although Expedia has slipped from 8.59% visitor share in 2006 to 7.68% in 2007. The other major site to lose market share was Travelsupermarket.com, which fell from 2.6% in 2006 to 1.64% a year later. This contrasts with Thomas Cook and MyTravel UK which rose 0.62% and 0.53% respectively in 2007. There was also an increase of more than 150% in the number of searches by our selection of travel-related search terms in June 2007 compared with 12 months earlier. There were 106,1333 searches for a flight to Cyprus this June, a jump of 70,367 compared with June 2006. The search terms were also more general, with flight to Portugal posting a 146.92% rise in popularity alongside cheap flight to Portugal, which jumped 310.33% in popularity. Similarly, the terms Egypt flight and travel Dominican Republic posted higher percentage rises than cheap flight to Germany, and cheap flight to India.