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Travel websites see surge in visits despite World Cup
Visits to travel websites are up 15% in the past month and 8% up year on year, according to the latest UK figures from Hitwise.
In the last month visits are up 23% to Lastminute.com, 27% to Expedia UK, 20% to TripAdvisor, 33% to LateRooms UK and 25% to First Choice.
“Despite the hype surrounding the World Cup and high hopes for England in early matches, attention of UK consumers does not appear to have been deflected from planning summer holidays,” said Heather Hopkins, director of research for Hitwise UK.
“Visits to travel websites have grown more rapidly in the past month than during the same period last year. Given the flurry of activity in recent weeks, we are likely to see strong growth for the sector online leading up to the mid-August annual peak.”
The most searched-for destinations in the four weeks to July 8 were Australia, Turkey, Tenerife, Cyprus, and Florida.
The top search terms, excluding brand names, were ‘holidays,’ ‘cheap holidays,’ ‘cheap flights,’ ‘flights,’ ‘travel agents’ and ‘package holidays.’
Top 10 search terms driving traffic to Travel Agency
The top 10 destination search terms were:
flights to australia
cheap flights to australia
cheap flights to turkey
flights to tenerife
flights to cyprus
cheap flights to cyprus
cheap flights to tenerife
florida holidays
flights to new york
cheap flights to alicante
Figures are based on measuring, on a daily basis, how more than 25 million internet users interact with over 500,000 websites across 160 industry categories.
By Bev Fearis
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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